Discussion Topic

First of all this is NOT a thread about whether evolution is true or not. The starting point for this thread is it is. That being said, there are lots of interesting issues within this very big topic that are controversial and thought-provoking. It's clear to me that there are lots of very bright STers with a range of scientific backgrounds that could make this fun. Here are three topics that I've been interested in for several years.

1. Are humans still evolving? I mean significantly. Are we going to continue evolving bigger brains for instance. Since natural selection requires some sort of selection pressure, typically involving either a significant culling or isolation of a population, is this likely in a world of 7 billion where people move (and procreate) freely across the planet?

2. Is group selection, as advocated most notably by the evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson, a viable process for explaining things like altruism or can this be explained entirely by selection at the organism or gene level?

3. What is the likelihood that the emergence of life on a planet will lead to intelligent life given 100s of millions or billions of years of evolution to work with.

My short opinions are (1) No. (2) No. (3) Low. I could be wrong on all three.

1) yes, because I don't think it can, stop. Esp with a population and number of variables as high as what we have.

-but it's hard to tell from the inside what the pressures are that are pushing evolution and what mutations are being favored. Probably something like immunity to an upcoming plague. Or nimble texting fingers, or other hand eye coordination factor.

1. Yes, I think our current "form" has only existed for a relatively short period of time. I think there are some things that have changed even over that short period (like average human height). Maybe different genes are turned on by different/changing factors in the organism's environment.

2. Maybe this is in the domain of something else, like memetics? Although I do think certain aspects of human behavior are fairly "hard-wired" In cases.

3. I also think low. But I would change it to "low-to-medium" if I knew that there were many more potential life-harboring planets verified to exist and were stable over long periods. I always have the feeling that if we could access a "god's eye view" of all life in the universe, we might be very surprised at how much of it there is.

Jaybro, with respect to 1), obviously the processes behind evolution have not changed, and clearly genetic drift will always occur, but for something significant like bigger brains you need something like smart people preferentially procreating with other smart people AND out-procreating the rest of the population. I just don't see it. In fact the large population would tend to inhibit rather than advance evolution.

1. Because of human intervention (good medicine, more food), evolution is NOT "survival of the fittest". The weak survive and add to the gene pool resulting in the increased number of genetic defects. So, yes, we are evolving. The positive effects, like taller and stroner, smarter could be because of cultural advances and epigenetics, which is temporary.

A quote:
"Five thousand years is such a small sliver of time -- it's 100 to 200 generations ago. That's how long it's been since some of these genes originated, and today they are in 30 or 40 percent of people because they've had such an advantage. It's like 'invasion of the body snatchers.'"

I just read an old Scientific American article on topic 3 about SETI. The original proponents, largely physicist predicted that the probablity would be close to 100%. Evolutionary biologists then chimed in and suggested that this was a complete misunderstanding by the physicists on how evolution really works. There's nothing particularly inevitable about it.

Moosedrool is right on the money.
1. Yes, unquestionably evolving, but perhaps not how you are thinking. Evolution is just change in frequencies of genetic variations that code for phenotypic (observable) traits. It's directional to the extent that those traits result in the leaving of greater numbers of offspring in future generations whether through getting more food, avoiding getting eaten, or just having more offspring that survive (and then getting eaten). Sharp eyesight once conferred an advantage in survival; now, not so much. So the genetic combinations that produce it are less prevalent than they used to be: voila, evolution; although most people would probably consider it to be de-volution. Larger brain/greater intelligence/stuff like that no longer confers a consistent survivorship or procreative advantage; on the contrary. So, I'd say we're definitely evolving but in the direction of what I personally judge to be less desirable characteristics, both physical and social, rather than more desirable ones. But it's all just the value judgment of anyone's individual personal context.
2. Probably both things are going on; maybe in different proportion in different species.
3. Intelligence is initially going to be an advantage in just about any evolving ecosystem, so without any doubt whatsoever, given the huge number of likely life-supporting planets, there's something we'd label as intelligent life out there. The real question is, do we think it exists on Earth? Depends on how you define it.

1. Are humans still evolving? I mean significantly. Are we going to continue evolving bigger brains for instance. Since natural selection requires some sort of environmental pressure, typically involving either a significant culling or isolation of a population, is this likely in a world of 7 billion where people move (and procreate) freely across the planet?

Yes, we don't have a choice in the matter. Given an unlimited amount of time in the future, the only thing that will stop human race is the human race itself. Calling something progress when it poisons the wells will ultimately end everything.

2. Is group selection, as advocated most notably by the evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson, a viable process for explaining things like altruism or can this be explained entirely by selection at the organism or gene level?

Not sure of the correlation,group selection vs. altruism vs. individual/gene. Too much question for me.

3. What is the likelihood that the emergence of life on a planet will lead to intelligent life given 100s of millions or billions of years of evolution to work with.

This, I think, depends on what is considered "intelligence". Looking back on recent history (within 100 years) we can ask were they really intelligent? With all that has been discovered by some human beings in the last 100 years can we say that anyone from 100 years ago held anything that we can point at as intelligence? I say no, and for this reason I say our growth, understanding, and knowledge will continue to climb as long as those who refuse to think don't stop the learning by society. But, given the last 100 years of progress with regard to knowledge about the world we live in, those who would stifle knowledge and learning, will not be able to stop the dissemination of future knowledge yet to be found, no matter how hard they try.

Clearly, topic 1 would seem to have a "correct" answer, and I got it wrong. What really interests me about that one is whether we are continuing to evolve to be smarter, bigger-brained hominids. Seems that many people just assume that this is true as if there is something inevitable about it. My take has always been you need selection pressure for that to happen, and the current conditions just don't support that. I think it's going to be technology-aided processes that will accomplish this in the future.

With respect to 2, this is a little more estoric than the other two, and required reading would be something like The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins and The Social Conquest of Earth by E.O. Wilson. The consensus, I believe, is that group selection just doesn't work, but it definitely is a controversial subject in the field and really interesting from the standpoint of how morality came about.

1. Evolution is alive and well in the human species, and operating to full effect.

evidence:

continuing breaking of athletic records--production of exceptional "tip of the iceberg" individuals

continuing lengthening of AVERAGE lifespan--production of better average "stock"

continuing identification of those who in past would have been discarded as misfits or disabled and would have been discarded, but are now seen as genius--Einstein, Hawking, Temple Grandin.

Also of note: you can't pass genetics on, if you die. One of Einstein's kids died of diptheria, a vaccine preventable disease that we almost never see anymore, and another, who was considere SMARTER than his dad, was institutionalized with schizophrenia and basically destroyed by the treatments of the time...which would not happen now. He almost certainly would be able to live a nearly normal life, and utilize his genius, and pass his genes on. (two Einstein grandchildren do live in Los Angeles, one is a doctor)

Come back in 100,000 years for the answer. We, of course, imagine that evolution will result in larger brains, because that is what we would like to think. The brain already consumes a reported 20% of our energy budget. If we get another ice age the gains from brain size will have to be quite large to compete with the increased demand on energy budget due to climate. I am of course assuming reality TV will be only a minor blip and will soon cease to exist.

If you have not seen it, I would recommend Ramachandran’s TED talk on mirror neurons. He has data on these neurons and suggests the brain is proactively hard wired to promote the ability of homo sapiens to work in concert. And it has bearing on altruism. The data supporting this purported ability of humans to cooperate is, unfortunately, becoming quite spotty of late.

The new branch of science known as Evolutionary Psychology seems very interesting as it carries the field away from the extensive anecdotal studies popularized by Freud and moves in new directions. Below is an extended discussion between Prof. Buss and Richard Dawkins.

3. What is the likelihood that the emergence of life on a planet will lead to intelligent life given 100s of millions or billions of years of evolution to work with.

Lawrence Krauss has considered the energy limitation on information in the universe and feels life itself must needs cease to exist. No form of life will have billions of years in which to pursue anything. Sorry to bring this up on a climbing site but hey. You got to tell it like it is. There will be no 5. 10^20.

Now that I have gotten this off my chest I need to go read Ed’s links.

Edit:
As regards brain size and "intelligence", a wonderfully ill-defined term, look up Ramachandran's talk on how the regions of the brain are interconnected specifically to facilitate metaphorical thinking.

wasn't it the other day that you commented that if we could take a newborn from as far ago as 50,000 years or so, and transplant that infant to today, that it would have the same intelligence, learning capacity, as we humans have?

that evolutionarily speaking we would have to go back much further in time to perhaps find homo sapiens of significant difference?

continuing breaking of athletic records--production of exceptional "tip of the iceberg" individuals

continuing lengthening of AVERAGE lifespan--production of better average "stock"

continuing identification of those who in past would have been discarded as misfits or disabled and would have been discarded, but are now seen as genius--Einstein, Hawking, Temple Grandin.

Ken, I would argue that none of these are evidence for continuing human evolution. The first could easily be explained by sheer numbers, better nutrition, and better training techniques. The second by better nutrition and education. The third by education and "civilization" of society.

Don't get hung up on the bigger brain = smarter. Although there is clearly a correlation (when normalized for body mass) I just mean genetic-based greater intelligence.

Norton - I referred to 5,000 years, but it might as well have been 50,000, although now I'm not so sure that 50,000 years wouldn't be long enough to show some clear (average) differences.

In the context of human evolution, human vestigiality involves those characters (such as organs or behaviors) occurring in the human species that are considered vestigial—in other words having lost all or most of their original function through evolution. Although structures usually called "vestigial" often appear functionless, a vestigial structure may retain lesser functions or develop minor new ones.[1] In some cases, structures once identified as vestigal simply had an unrecognized function.[2]

The examples of human vestigiality are numerous, including the anatomical (such as the human appendix, tailbone, wisdom teeth, and inside corner of the eye), the behavioral (goose bumps and palmar grasp reflex), sensory (decreased olfaction), and molecular (junk DNA). Many human characteristics are also vestigial in other primates and related animals.

Eeyonkee, the direction of human evolution is clearly visible. The people that have the highest number of children dictate that course.

VERY IMPORTANT (Wikipedia)

In biology, and specifically genetics, epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence – hence the name epi- (Greek: επί- over, above, outer) -genetics. It refers to functionally relevant modifications to the genome that do not involve a change in the nucleotide sequence. Examples of such modifications are DNA methylation and histone modification, both of which serve to regulate gene expression without altering the underlying DNA sequence. These changes may remain through cell divisions for the remainder of the cell's life and may also last for multiple generations. However, there is no change in the underlying DNA sequence of the organism;[1] instead, non-genetic factors cause the organism's genes to behave (or "express themselves") differently.[2] There are objections to the use of the term epigenetic to describe chemical modification of histone since it remains unknown whether or not these modifications are heritable.[3]
One example of epigenetic changes in eukaryotic biology is the process of cellular differentiation. During morphogenesis, totipotent stem cells become the various pluripotent cell lines of the embryo, which in turn become fully differentiated cells. In other words, a single fertilized egg cell – the zygote – changes into the many cell types including neurons, muscle cells, epithelium, endothelium of blood vessels, etc. as it continues to divide. It does so by activating some genes while inhibiting others.[4]
In 2011, it was demonstrated that the methylation of mRNA has a critical role in human energy homeostasis. The obesity associated FTO gene is shown to be able to demethylate N6-methyladenosine in RNA. This opened the related field of RNA epigenetics.[5][6]

Edit: It is unclear for how many generations epigenetics are passed. But it is the fastest mode of pseudo evolution.

The problem with #1 is that we want to see it as something positive. Like bigger brains, or somehow that we're getting "better," and that's not how it works. We're probably evolving to be more tolerant of pollution and sun exposure, higher temperatures etc, possibly at the expense of what we think of as 'good' qualities.

Jaybro, you're preaching to the choir with respect to evolution having no "goals". I get that. My point is, even for, say, tolerance to sun, there has to be some differential survival or occurrence rate for the "good" genes to proliferate in a population. Those with the gene have to either survive more or have more babies. I suppose in third world countries with high populations, this sort of thing is likely still happening. In first world countries, it's not so clear (at least to me).

1. Our expression (genetic and epigenetic) and that of our symbionts and endogenic viral load is subject to continual environmental and ecological pressure - whether we're still evolving is not even a question. But I would posit that focusing on, or attempting to point to, behavioral or physical traits which have social currency in our society are largely misguided as most of those [inherent] attributes and capabilities were [fully] expressed in modern humans tens of thousands of years ago. I would similarly be largely skeptical of any too-direct a linkage between behavior and epigenetics.

2. We are no less "social" than ants and I suspect that's due to trade-offs associated with the energy budget of our brain and more to do with the evolution of very early primates in general as opposed anything to do with modern hominids.

3. We exist so 'intelligence' is undoubtably 'common' as sknott relative to the total number of planets in life-hospitable galaxies.

Of course human evolution is ongoing and there is every reason to think, based solely on numbers, that Europe and America will have little to do with the final direction of the human race. Our future as a species is being determined in Asia, home of over 50% of us. Later, as the population of Africa continues to grow, they will contribute more also. Europe and North America together are only about 6% of the world's total population

Secondly, as has been pointed out, our values cause many less than physically and mentally optimum people to survive and reproduce, thus weakening the biological fitness of the developed societies. Further, we choose to preserve life at all costs at both ends of the human lifespan at the expense of those of reproductive age.

Thirdly, many of our best nourished, healthiest and educated (presumably smarter) people are failing to reproduce or do so only in minimal numbers.

And finally, we have created such comfortable and clean environments that we have reduced much selective pressure. The teeming masses living in the megacities of the world, especially in Asia, are being heavily selected for certain traits, including widespread resistance to both waterborne and airborne microbes, and heavy chemical and particulate pollution of the atmosphere. Those who survive the slums of these cities are definitely superior biological specimens who reproduce more than our pampered citizens.

As for evolution of intelligence, the obstacles that citizens of crowded developing societies face just to survive, demand much more quick and flexible thinking than our spoiled existence which has the luxury to sit around and debate whether evolution even exists or not.

And finally, we have created such comfortable and clean environments that we have reduced much selective pressure.

Jan, I believe this is a mistake and one of human-centric social biases. There is no such thing as a "clean and comfortable" environment - there are only 'different' environments with more or less 'novel' attributes. From a microbial perspective, mega slums represent an active competitive environment whereas our "clean and comfortable" environment may be far better suited to the evolution of 'superbugs' given the hostile agents used to achieve these environments. Our first world environments may in fact be be evolutionary 'accelerants'. Similarly, habitat destruction unbalances 'stable' ecologies creating other highly novel incubators.

If a superbug emerges from either our 'clean' environment or a destabilized habitat then it's unlikely mega slum dwellers will be well-suited to survive either other than as more a mutational fluke of pure numbers.

Ok, I see where you are coming from, Moosedrool. Great post, Jan. I'm with you. But let's just say that all of Asia and Africa were first world countries, with concomitant very low infant mortality and high life expectancy. Would your answer be the same?

With respect to 3, remember, the setup is the emergence of life on one planet and the liklihood of intelligent life (say, capable of technology)emerging on that planet. I'm not asking about the odds of intelligent life in the universe as a whole, which I would put at extremely high.

Sharks have evolved very little in the last 200 million years. Why? Because they haven't needed to. Evolution doesn't do it's magic just because. And there's certainly no reason to believe that given enough time that sharks would involve intelligence on par with humans.

Healje, (respectfully) the premise that because we are here means that the answer to 3 is high seems faulty to me. It smacks of the creationist premise that because the universe is just right for humans that it must have been designed for them.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. However, if our current sanitary environment makes us more susceptible to superbugs emanating from other continents, and we die off in great numbers, isn't the final effect of that to reduce our role in ongoing evolution even further?

And yes you're right about "clean and comfortable" being an example of social bias. But really, have you ever tried to live in one of those societies? I am always made aware of what a biological weakling I am compared to my Indian and Nepalese friends.

eeyonkee: Healyje, (respectfully) the premise that because we are here means that the answer to 3 is high seems faulty to me. It smacks of the creationist premise that because the universe is just right for humans that it must have been designed for them.

Naw, I just think that we exist means intelligence is inevitable in some percentage of galaxies which become hospitable to life.

That's a very interesting question and one that's hard for me to imagine given the present state of the world and dwindling resources. For hypothetical purposes however, assuming that all the world becomes as developed and hygienic as ourselves, then yes, the biological fitness of the entire human race would become less than that of our ancestors.

Likewise, if all the elites of the world fail to reproduce, the same effect will be achieved. There are indications of this already happening in parts of Asia as the Japanese and Korean governments are now giving child allowance to encourage reproduction and Singapore has gone so far as to promote social events between highly educated professionals in the hope of increasing marriage and reproduction of those classes.

Jan: I'm not sure I understand what you mean. However, if our current sanitary environment makes us more susceptible to superbugs emanating from other continents, and we die off in great numbers, isn't the final effect of that to reduce our role in ongoing evolution even further?

It works both ways, our superbugs will kill more slum dwellers and a novel pathogen jumping species out of the blue from a destabilized habitat may be equally lethal to both high rise and megaslum dwellers - it's more a question of how novel the microbe is to our exposure to it.

And yes you're right about "clean and comfortable" being an example of social bias. But really, have you ever tried to live in one of those societies?

Yes, and always deathly ill on first exposure as well. Cruise ships are a good example of why there is no such thing as "clean and comfortable" environments despite our social images of them.

it's more a question of how novel the microbe is to our exposure to it.

Agreed, (and really good point about cruise ships!) but it still seems to me that people whose immune systems are frequently challenged will have a better chance than those whose systems produce allergies as false alarms because they have so little else to respond to.

And I'm wondering if the decimation of the Native American populations wasn't an example of both - superbugs they had no previous exposure to and possibly weakened immune systems from living in sparsely populated, microbially challanged environments?

I think we will screw our earth up and kill ourselves off long before evolutionaly pressure will demonstrate measurable results. Our present population is not sustanable for another 500 years and maybe much less than 500 years. But the good news is that I will have lived at the very best time to be alive and will be gone before the "Crunch". Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I'm wondering if the decimation of the Native American populations wasn't an example of both - superbugs they had no previous exposure to and possibly weakened immune systems from living in sparsely populated, microbially challanged environments?

I think that is a closer parallel to your 'megaslum' scenario of a 'dirty' (ag-based humans and animals in close proximity) and dense-population pathogen wreaking havoc on a [sparse] 'clean' population.

We’re still evolving, for sure. We are getting dumber and fatter, at least in the first world. If you give a non-culturally bias IQ test to a representative population from most remaining hunter gather peoples, the average is about 110. Evolution fails to work in our favor when people aren’t allowed to eliminate themselves from the gene pool- before breeding. People living longer means that medical technology has evolved, not people. People riding their bikes faster, hitting more home runs and climbing 5.17 means better nutrition and better drugs…

Question two seems a bit poorly worded. Altruism…, it seems to me, is a product of cultural evolution, not genetic. Both are important for sure but shouldn’t be confused. Social evolution= history, physical evolution= genetics. History is a stationary bicycle disguised as a bulldozer, evolution is exactly the opposite. I read that somewhere, can’t remember where but I liked it.

I like question three. It would be ridiculous to hold too strongly to any one opinion given our pathetically small sample of one. That being said, for every planet with life (obviously there are scads) I’d like to think about 5% of those planets develop intelligent life, that’s not to say we’d recognize it as such…

Question 2, as I indicated earlier, requires a little more background reading for most people. It's actually a pretty big and controversial subject among evolutionary biologists. Altruism, is at first blush, not easily explained by classical evolution. Richard Dawkins (building on others' work) presented compelling evidence that altruism in humans is the result of 'selfish' genes. Briefly, since you share 50% of your genes with your siblings and parents, it would be beneficial to your gene legacy if you were to sacrifice yourself for say, three of your siblings. E.O. Wilson, too, suggested that altruism has a genetic basis, but he conceived of a separate level of selection, one at the group level rather then organismic or gene level. Dawkins would claim that group selection requires some mysterious agent that is simply not needed to explain the genetic basis for altruism. This is a super-simplified explanation.

Thanks E,
Maybe I’m still too hung over for question 2. I think I read one of Dawson’s books (wasn‘t he the ‘THERE‘S NO GOD AND IF YOU THINK SO YOU‘RE A MORON’ guy). I remained unimpressed. Just so angry… And doing such a bad job of trying to prove a negative…
Never the less, I’m standing by my original statement- altruism=cultural…

Dawkins is known by the general public more for his anti-religion writings, but he is a well-respected zoologist and evolutionary biologist who authored some very seminal books in the field. I've read at least 10, including his most famous book, The Selfish Gene.

Altruism really is the basis for morality from a genetic standpoint. I really didn't explain the whole selfish gene thing very well. I'm not on top of it enough to summarize in a paragraph or two. For one thing, one should probably throw out the term 'selfish' in a summary explanation, as it is more likely to obfuscate rather than shed light on the subject. I'm hoping somebody who is on top of this will chime in.

Ken, how is it you know Hawking and have spent time with Dawkins and Wilson. Let's hear it! :)

My graduate work was in genetics at Davis, and I studied with two of the giants of evolution of the last century, Stebbins and Dobzhansky. Just having known them opens doors, much less having worked with them.

I had communicated with Dawkins, who'd read stuff I'd written, and when he came to town to lecture at UCLA a few months ago, we got together to talk for awhile over coffee. A privilege.

It turns out Hawking is a fan of magic, and so am I. When I heard that, I arranged through intermediaries to have him invited to the Magic Castle, a private club for magicians in Los Angeles where I sometimes go, for a private show. To my astonishment, he accepted, and he and his entourage came and had dinner and a great time. I had a chance to talk with him, but it was only for a brief time.

By the way, Stebbins was a climber, and put up first ascents in the Sierra!

I remember (vaguely) an article on cooperation. The researchers used game theory and computer simulation. The result seemed to implicate that cooperation wins. I think it is closely related to altruism, which would suggests its genetic origin.

As for subject #3, it probably depends for how long and how fast organisms evolve. It took on Earth 500,000 years(?) to produce intelligence. Maybe intelligence is not inevitable but highly probable if given enough time?

Certainly the question of whether altruism is genetic or cultural is an interesting one. Considering the densely populated cooperative societies of East Asia and the individualistic and fragmented nature of America gives food for thought. We know that Chinese looking at a group photo scan everyone in the photo and surmise their relationship to each other while Americans tend to focus on one or two individuals with unusual characteristics (perceived interest or dominance) instead. In the social sciences we assume that is the result of culture.

I would love to hear an argument from the gene point of view. Or perhaps they are symbiotic? Individuals who stood out in dense agricultural populations had a greater chance of being rejected, persecuted, or annihilated in these societies by the power structures, and their genes over 6,000 years of history were gradually eliminated? An epigenetics example?

We know from DNA studies that in southern China (south of the Yangtze River), most of the men are northern Han Chinese while most of the women are southern, non Han Chinese. Therefore competitive pressures (and no doubt outright annihilation) altered the gene pool of a large population of non Han males. Human males in most places of the world must have been subjected to this type of selection many times over. Another case of epigenetics?

And what does this say of the relative fitness of men and women? The surviving males should be stronger, able to run faster, and smarter than the women? Or more likely this has contributed to men having more flight or fight reactions and women more accomodation oriented survival strategies with intelligence exhibeted in different ways?

As for subject #3, it probably depends for how long and how fast organisms evolve. It took on Earth 500,000 years(?) to produce intelligence. Maybe intelligence is not inevitable but highly probable if given enough time?

moose, what do you mean by 500,000 years?

that our primate ancestors exhibited a higher intelligence about that many years ago?

or that from the beginning of the earth to some point and 500K to what?

Depending on how you define intelligence, our lineage began about 2 million years ago and really got going about 50,000 years ago.

So it took almost 3.5 billion years to achieve intelligence if you define it as the first microwave oven or first species in space or whatever wha wha you want to use.

Yes, we are still evolving. Modern medicine does affect this, and would make a good discussion topic on its own.

The real kicker here is that very soon we will be genetically engineering ourselves. We can do it with corn, we can do it with mice, and there is no reason that we can't do it with people.

It is inevitable that we will jump beyond slow natural selection and engineer ourselves. If there is a shortcut, it will be used. The potential advantage of engineering ourselves is actually a conscious and deliberate way to control our evolutoun. Mice with tinkered DNA are being used in all sorts of experiments and drug trial experiments.
The benefits of genetic engineering will be fast and efficient. I leave the moral implications up to the reader.

A paper just came out that showed a genetic predisposition for some of the things that we call "morals," such as altruism. Altruism surprised me.

I think that it is very difficult for an intelligent creature like ourselves to evolve. It doesn't really provide a reproductive advantage for the long haul. Man is facing all sorts of self inflicted environmental and population problems already. If we don't make it, bacteria certainly will.

As far as the beginning of life, from my discussions with others who work in the field of evolution, life appears to have only begun once on this planet. That begs the question of why life hasn't begun many times, given that it happened early on the Earth and the planet is ideal for life of our chemistry.

Their is the universal genome which implies that all life comes from a single common ancestor.

Good question and neat experiment that could easily be performed on Chinese Americans by showing them group photos at different ages.

Eye movement can be easily measured, no matter what the person perceives they are doing. If genetic, very young Chinese children would look all around the photo and then focus on individuals as they grew up and were more acculturated to American ways.

The paper I read said that this gene was also found in primates other than humans. Many animals work together as groups. Some animals mate for life, and somehow most animals know not to have sex with their brood or offspring.

I'm serious with the genetic engineering aspect. It isn't a part of my field, but I read a paper that was in the PNAS that included mice who were engineered without H1 hystamine receptors.

I'll do a little googling on the matter, but if you think about it, since we are still tribal and war with each other for no good reason. A genetic improvement in strength, intelligence, absence of hereditary disease and the like, and then kept it to yourself, within a generation you would be ruling the rest of the human race who were just a tiny bit slower in acquiring these methods.

The first group to do this will dominate. Go watch the idea in the movie Gattica. That film covers much of this, including actual genetic descrimination.

The time is rapidly approaching when we will be able to create our own evolutionary fate.

Our future as a species is being determined in Asia, home of over 50% of us.

The peoples of Africa are more genetically diverse than those of the rest of the world, combined. This suggests that they may be better able to adapt to whatever environmental challenges we create for ourselves.

As for the questions, I'm not a geneticist, but will make some guesses.

1. Are humans still evolving?

No reason they shouldn't be, and hybrid vigour from interbreeding of previously separated populations may lead to interesting results. I don't know that we can evolve to have larger brains, or that that would be an advantage. Can human females give birth to children with larger brains, and survive? Alternatively, if the brains grow further after birth, would an additionally prolonged adolescence be beneficial? Perhaps the brain can evolve in other ways, of course.. Anyway, we're surely still evolving, it's just a quesion of how.

2. Is group selection, as advocated most notably by the evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson, a viable process for explaining things like altruism or can this be explained entirely by selection at the organism or gene level?

If we can select some people out of SuperTopo, or at least just ignore them, that may demonstrate this hypothesis.

3. What is the likelihood that the emergence of life on a planet will lead to intelligent life given 100s of millions or billions of years of evolution to work with.

I'm not sure that humans are intelligent or civilized yet. After 4.53 billion years, give or take, we like to believe we are. My guess is that unicellular life is fairly common in the universe, but that it rarely evolves to more complex forms, let alone intelligence.

On a related note:

Eventually the US government will feel pressured into a rover/return mission to Mars, perhaps followed by a human flight. It will be a response to a possible Chinese manned Moon flight, and if the current series of increasingly sophisticated probes (and a rover/return) lead to the conclusion that Mars once had a real atmosphere and surface liquids for any length of time (almost certain), and that there is sufficient liquid water in the interior that life might still exist there.

If we get to the point of detecting oxygen atmospheres in planets orbiting other stars, we'll have a real challenge figuring out what to do.

//The first group to do this will dominate. Go watch the idea in the movie Gattica. That film covers much of this, including actual genetic descrimination.

The time is rapidly approaching when we will be able to create our own evolutionary fate.
//

Science fiction can be viewed as a form of contingency planning. Robert Heinlein is one among several authors to speculate on our evolutionary future, for example in Beyond This Horizon (serialized in 1942) and Assignment in Eternity (1941-49).

It's hard enough to come up with a zombie plan, never mind a superman plan.

Some evolutionary theory suggests a model where most species are fairly static for most of their history, punctuated by rapid ("rapid" being a relative term here) changes that form the steps between species. I don't think we've changed greatly as a species in the past 100 thousand years (happy to be corrected)?

I'm sure there will be modest drift in the human species over time, but at least at the moment I can't see a strong survival/breeding advantage in being intelligent, for example, so I'm not sure we're evolving further in that direction any time soon. Likewise, I can't see any evolutionary advantage to being able to complete a 100m sprint in record time (unless there is data out there suggesting Olympic medalists have 10 offspring on average).

If the species or an ancestral species survives long term (not a given), I suspect our next major stage of evolution will have to wait until a crisis or major event causes either a bottleneck in the population or a strong selection process (e.g., an isolated population in space, or a global famine reducing us to a handful of individuals).

BASE104's ponderings over whether human evolution will be an active/directed process via genetic engineering is an interesting one.

Good responses, and thanks for the links! Base, I'm completely with you that the future of "evolution" of humans will likely be based on self-engineering and technology. It will simply be so much faster than natural selection. Seems to me that two other ways for significant change would be one or more major pandemics, in which, as MH and others have pointed out, the great genetic diversity in Africa would likely come into play. Another, suggested to me by a friend, would be if we survive long enough to become a space-faring species. A small group of people who become separated from the rest of humanity for long stretches of time would almost certainly start evolving faster, since there could be no remixing of genes with the mass of humans on the planet.

Turns out Werner, the idea of cheaters is a big one with respect to the second question. The foundation of Dawkin's problem with group selection is that cheaters would ruin it before it ever really got going.

To anyone interested in the genetic basis for altruism/empathy I would highly suggest reading 'The Selfish Gene'. For all of the ideas it packs, it's short and a relatively easy read. If you're not already familiar with some of the ideas, you'll come away looking at this subject in a completely different way.

The peoples of Africa are more genetically diverse than those of the rest of the world, combined. This suggests that they may be better able to adapt to whatever environmental challenges we create for ourselves.

Maybe we can say that Asia will determine the future of the human race based on sheer numbers if all goes well, and Africa with its greater genetic diversity will save us if we face a catastrophe? For sure, between them with diversity and numbers, they have the best chance.

I don't know that we can evolve to have larger brains, or that that would be an advantage. Can human females give birth to children with larger brains, and survive?

We could indeed give birth to babies with larger brains if those brains were added to the top of the head. One theory about the extinction of the neanderthals who had around 300 cubic centimeters more brain than modern Homo sapiens, is that their large brain caused many maternal deaths due to the fact that it was stacked in the back, making for a head that was very wide coming down the birth canal. Homo sapiens by contrast, had a smaller brain and stacked on top resulting in a high forehead compared to neanderthal and less width in the birth canal.

Alternatively, if the brains grow further after birth, would an additionally prolonged adolescence be beneficial?

I think this has already happened for cultural reasons and why not? If we now live to 80 instead of 50, why shouldn't we lengthen the period of childhood and adolescence with its great potential for novelty and learning?

this is a stoopid thread. we had an interesting discussion going on donini's ignorance thread, but yonkers here has co-opted all the evolution true believers away from that. now donini's thread is dying a predictable death.

these are not interesting questions, yonkers.

1. of course humans continue to evolve. do you even understand the premise of standard, government-issue evolution? but the big problem is the direction of evolution. women are not getting prettier, they're getting fatter.

2. altruism is merely a concept contained in the wishful thinking of the researcher. it's the most subjective thing imaginable. i'm being objective about that.

3. you should go back and study GI evolution again. if you get your dates right, you might begin to ask some "interesting" questions.

12 billion ybp (years before present, so's you don't get confused by the birth of jesus), big bang happens.

5-6 billion ybp, our solar system confabulates; prior to that we had the evolution of quasars, protogalaxies and a bunch of astrophysical stuff it wouldn't hurt you to study up on. don't overlook the role of supernovas and the triple alpha process, which produces the element carbon, and which caused fred hoyle to stop being an atheist.

2.75 billion ybp we have amino acids, zapped in the tidepools by lightning, beginning to replicate the little link-ups they naturally form just lying around. eventually this "evolves" into dna, we get cells, probably viruses first, then fancier stuff. life remains unicelled for more than another billion years, but then the little buggers start building alliances (aka organisms), and, alas, they start eating each other as well. this is so sad, when you think about its implications for our future right now (because we are continuing to evolve).

so these klunky kritters keep on cooking and then comes the cambrian explosion. wowee. somewhere, deep in that dna, lies the propensity to experiment. it all gets on the fast track. vertebrates evolve out of a dumb-looking cambrian thing that happens to have a spinelike structure just to keep it swimming. from this come the great dinosaurs, then the great mammals, then the great humans. hooray for us!

the great humans started anthropoidizing outa fellow primates around 6 million ybp. i think the latest on homo sapiens (humans who can act like saps) puts our breakaway from other anthropoids at around a million years. don't think fellow primates are not intelligent. don't think ungulates are not intelligent. don't think dinosaurs were not intelligent. they were probably pretty in their way too, but not in the way of certain contemporaneous human females. (there's a whole thread on supertopo currently devoted to the latter, which is probably dying out. it makes me so sad that i have quit posting on it.)

the above dates are subject to immediate and possibly drastic revision based on next month's issue of the british magazine nature.

i see werner has come over here. i think he's running from me. i'm determined to figure out whether he's a sourpuss or not.

Yes, it was an interesting discussion, Mr. Bird, but eventually it turned into usual ST name calling and trolling. Some people find it disgusting and want to have an adult conversation. I found this little article on arguing. Many valid points!

How to Argue on the Internet Without Becoming a Troll

Jesse Nivens

It's September of an election year, and people are drawing lines, taking stands, and proclaiming their political beliefs. Even the lurkers, who brag that they "never post political stuff on Facebook" find their trigger fingers twitching over the "share" button. The internet is a battlefield, and you simply can't get around online without being drawn into a shootout from time to time. When that happens, these tips will keep you knocking down opponents without losing your cool or becoming a troll.
Don't Use Metaphors
If you find yourself typing out the words, "It's kinda like if…" then stop immediately and delete what you've written. The silence of your non-response is going to carry much more weight than your argument. Metaphors—comparing the situation you're debating to a different situation—are the cyanide of online arguments.

What's wrong with metaphors?
Metaphors are a teaching method and work wonderfully when your audience is on your side. When someone is on your side, they mentally find the comparison points and use them to enrich their understanding of what you're saying. When they're against you, they focus solely on the differences between your case and the example case. As soon as they do, you're no longer debating about the original point. A second debate thread has been created, and now you're debating whether or not your point is comparable to X. Getting back to your original argument is nearly impossible.

Additionally, metaphors can easily offend. Remember that on the internet, people are desperate to take anything personally. Once they do, the debate will be completely derailed and centered around whether or not you think they're a dog, child, Hitler, or whatever other foolish thing you compared them to.

Look at these two statements and determine which one is stronger:

"What you're doing is kinda like asking me to come pick you up when your car is out of gas, and then complaining about how long it took me to show up."

"What you're doing is selfish."

Don't Post Links
Only a few of the links you post in a regular, friendly conversation with all parties in agreement actually get clicked and read by your audience. If someone's ass is completely chapped over your opinion, imagine how much less they're going to care about which blog posts have moved you.

People don't involve themselves in online arguments because they want to click around and "read more internet." They've been doing that already, and they've finally read enough to form an opinion. They're ready to test it out by fighting over it, and that's how you got involved. They're not going to read the link.

Do Post an Occasional Quote
An occasional quote from an intelligent person is great for bringing in a bit of ammunition, especially when they say it better than you can. But keep it short. If your opponent sees a quote mark followed by a pile of sentences, they're just going to skip it. Be careful about quoting people who are themselves debatable. If you're quoting Ayn Rand or Karl Marx, be prepared to start a new debate about Ayn Rand or Karl Marx.

Deal With Petty Insults Effectively
Did they call you an idiot, or a child, or a Nazi? Good, that means you've almost won. At this point, you have two choices: Deliver the finishing blow or get upset about their insult. There are two typical responses to being insulted, both bad:

Flipping shit: Petty insults persist as a strategy because sometimes people get trolled by them, and when they do, the ensuing firestorm makes everyone look bad. The offender knows they have lost, so they take one last chance of bringing the winner down to a tie. Don't fall for it.

Describing at length why you're not what they said you were: Have you ever noticed that when you're truly sick, and you call in to work, you just groan out that "I'm really sick." But when "sick" means your buddies want you to head to the beach, you find yourself on the phone describing the exact times you vomited last night and this morning, the consistency and make-up of your bowel movements, and how you've never felt quite like this before? That's because truth often needs no explaining.

If you're not an idiot, simply say you're not. When you get insulted, start by destroying any real arguments they made in their comment, then briefly deny the insult and patronize them for it: "And I'm not an idiot, don't talk to me like that."

Don't Ask Questions
You should never ask someone a question in a debate. When you do, you are ceding the podium to them and welcoming them onstage. Your question allows them to discuss their arguments from basically any angle they want as long as they loosely use your question as a point of departure.

Just like with metaphors, both the allure and the problem of questioning is that we are trying to be our opponent's teacher. We feel they are ignorant (and they are, dammit!) and we want to educate them. But if you've ever been in an 8th grade biology class with a substitute teacher, you know that a defiant and uninterested student cannot be taught. Any question the teacher asks them will be flipped into something sarcastic or off-topic. Questions don't work, but they can be outsmarted and defeated by superior wit and skillful retorts.

Never say, "Don't you think you're being a little hypocritical after what you did last week?" They won't say yes. Instead, turn your question into a statement, "After what you did last week, this is completely hypocritical."

Don't Be Led By Questions
Any question someone asks you in a debate is a trap: They want to position themselves as the teacher (authoritative and wise) and you as the student (subservient and inexperienced). Often, they want you to state their point for them, or at least introduce it. At the very least, they are using you to help finish their sentences. If you allow this to happen, you unwittingly become an accomplice to their point, making it much more difficult to argue against.

Just say, "I'm listening if you want to make a point: there's no need to frame it as a question."

Don't Use Annoying Buzz Phrases
Telling someone to "stop drinking the kool-aid," or calling people "sheeple" doesn't do anything to increase your legitimacy. It just makes it sound like you've copied your arguments from a radical pundit on AM radio or cable news. Also, don't call people "folks." Folks is an irritating word used by the elite in politics, business, and media to sound humble and connected. The reality is you sound like a jackass, and imitating jackasses is no way to win.

Any buzz phrase can easily be stated in a much more convincing fashion. Instead of telling someone to "stop drinking the kool-aid," say something like, "You're just repeating the stumping points of [political party]. They haven't been able to back them with convincing evidence, and neither have you."

Do a Quick Structure Check
Since an online post is usually just a quick statement, rather than being a researched, outlined and revised research article, it's often the case that someone will start writing hesitantly and gradually work their way up into a strong point. Before you post, look and see if your first few sentences were just a warm up. Can they be cut? Also check to see if you started with a conclusion, then figured out a good way to explain it. In that case, your first few sentences might work best at the end. Check for dangling arguments that are off point (and could start a second debate thread) along with removing metaphors and questions.

Jesse Nivens was a varsity (though never a master) debater in high school. He is currently a designer, game developer, writer, and self-proclaimed expert of internet argumentation living in Springfield, Missouri. Follow @jessenivens on Twitter.

moosedrool, stop drooling. i am not a troll, and i have never been. learn the difference between discussing and arguing. then start discussing here by telling me why you think eeyonk's questions are interesting, which i still contend they are not. a discussion has a thread. an argument consists of people clobbering each other with points of view which are inflexible. there is no thread running through an argument. it just reaches loggerheads.

my problem with this thread is that we had a good one going on donini's post and it knocked all the wind out of the sails there with three questions which i think are absolutely inane, and which exhibit little or no knowledge of the sophisticated contemporary debate on evolution.

Mr. Bird, the Donini's thread is on a different subject, it is a political thread. It is not Eeyonkee's fault that the other thread is dying.
Never called you a troll, btw.

Back to the topic.
If anybody still has any doubts whether we are still evolving:

An article by Jessica Hullinger

1. We Drink Milk

Historically, the gene that regulated a human’s ability to digest lactose shut down as they were weaned off of their mother’s breast milk. But when we began domesticating cows, sheep and goats, being able to drink milk became a nutritionally advantageous quality, and people with the genetic mutation that allowed them to digest lactose were better able to propagate their genes.

A 2006 study suggests this tolerance for lactose was still developing as early as 3,000 years ago in East Africa. That genetic mutation for digesting milk is now carried by more than 95 percent of Northern European descendants.

2. We’re Losing Our Wisdom Teeth

Our ancestors had much bigger jaws than we do, which helped them chew a tough diet of roots, nuts and leaves. And what meat they ate they tore apart with their teeth, all of which led to worn down chompers that needed replacing. Enter the wisdom teeth: A third set of molars is believed to be the evolutionary answer to accomodate our ancestors’ eating habits.

Today, we have utensils to cut our food. Our meals are softer and easier to chew, and our jaws are much smaller as a result, which is why wisdom teeth are often impacted when they come in — there just isn’t room for them. Like the appendix, wisdom teeth have become vestigial organs. One estimate says 35 percent of the population is born without wisdom teeth, and some say they will disappear altogether.

3. We’re Resisting Diseases

Doctor image via Shutterstock

In 2007, a group of researchers looking for signs of recent evolution uncovered 1,800 genes that have only become prevalent in humans in the last 40,000 years, many of which are devoted to fighting infectious diseases like malaria. More than a dozen new genetic variants for fighting malaria are spreading rapidly among Africans. Another study found that natural selection has favored city-dwellers. Living in cities has produced a genetic variant that allows us to be more resistant to diseases like tuberculosis and leprosy. “This seems to be an elegant example of evolution in action,” says Dr. Ian Barnes from the School of Biological Sciences at Royal Holloway. “It flags up the importance of a very recent aspect of our evolution as a species, the development of cities as a selective force.”

4. Our Brains Are Shrinking

Brain scan image via Shutterstock

While we may like to believe our big brains make us smarter than the rest of the animal world, our brains have actually been shrinking over the last 30,000 years. The average volume of the human brain has decreased from 1,500 cubic centimeters to 1,350 cubic centimeters, which is equivalent to a chunk the size of a tennis ball.

There are several different conclusions as to why this is: One group of researchers suspects our shrinking brains mean we are in fact getting dumber. Historically, brain size decreased as societies became larger and more complex, suggesting that the safety net of modern society negated the correlation between intelligence and survival. But another, more encouraging theory says our brains are shrinking not because we’re getting dumber, but because smaller brains are more efficient. This theory suggests that, as they shrink, our brains are being rewired to work faster but take up less room. There’s also a theory that smaller brains are an evolutionary advantage because they make us less aggressive beings, allowing us to work together to solve problems, rather than tear each other to shreds.

5. We Have Blue Eyes

Blue eyes image via Shutterstock

Originally, we all had brown eyes. But about 10,000 years ago, someone who lived near the Black Sea developed a genetic mutation that turned brown eyes blue. While the reason blue eyes have persisted remains a bit of a mystery, one theory is that they act as a sort of paternity test. “There is strong evolutionary pressure for a man not to invest his paternal resources in another man’s child,” says the lead author of a study on the development of our baby blues. Because it is virtually impossible for two blue-eyed mates to create a brown-eyed baby, our blue-eyed male ancestors may have sought out blue-eyed mates as a way of ensuring fidelity. This would partially explain why, in a recent study, blue-eyed men rated blue-eyed women as more attractive compared to brown-eyed women, whereas females and brown-eyed men expressed no preference.

Edit: Of course the interesting question remains: how much different are humans going to be in 1,000 or 10,000 years? With and without gene engineering.

donini posting a political topic? i beg to differ. he would never do such a thing.

moosedrool, i'm serious about this suggestion. stop dumping. true, you're not the only person who dumps, but if you want to ratchet up the tenor of the discussion a bit, put all this important information in your own words, if you can. if you're not familiar enough with the material to do that, maybe you should read it a little more closely yourself. these threads get impossible when the "argument" just becomes a battle of mouse fingers cut-and-paste. digest it. put it in your own words. and keep it short.

i don't mind commenting on your choice of an academic debate maven to lecture us on the use of metaphor. having wasted four years of high school, when i could have been seriously misbehaving, bamboozled by a pushy nun to squander my quality time on her debate team, i'll tell you an important lesson i learned about "debate" as it's conducted in the u.s.a. it's a great training ground for the development of argumentative lawyers who can slither like skinny reptiles from one side to another. it sure isn't a place to foster discussion, which is a much friendlier thing, a place where people compare notes, have a little respect for each other, and attempt to arrive at a new position, if it's possible. debate results in clobbering each other with warring positions, and it's further abused by the kind of dumping we get here. back on the debate team, if you had a quote, that proved everything. the idiot with the most quotes wins. no one did much critical thinking about whether the quote, usually lifted from time magazine, was worth a rat's rear end.

Dumping Mr. Bird? There were two quotations. Nothing here is really original. We shape our views based on the work of other people. I don't pretend to present anything original. Just my understanding of this world, valid or not.

so--we shape our views based on the work of other people. should i gather, then, that anyone with something original to offer--in 2013 a.d., of course--is being pretentious?

seems like you've got werner on your side, moose, which is no mean accomplishment. i wonder what it was like--what year would that have been, werner, along about 537,646 b.c.?--when someone actually thought an original thought. maybe it never happened.

i was interested to learn recently that francis crick was quite amenable to the idea of panspermia, and that he also, reportedly, gained his great insight into dna during a time of experimentation with hallucinogenic drugs in the 1950s, before they became illegal.

Looks like an interesting discussion but I just don't have the time to immerse myself in this one. However, this caught my eye:

Don't Use Metaphors

If you find yourself typing out the words, "It's kinda like if…" then stop immediately and delete what you've written... Metaphors—comparing the situation you're debating to a different situation—are the cyanide of online arguments.

Italics are mine.

Seems like those decrying metaphor can't avoid using them! Humans can't go a minute, literally, without using a metaphor. See what I mean? :-)

I just listened to a podcast that explained this in detail: Lexicon Alley:

Moosedrool's quotation by Jesse Nivens, "How to argue on the internet without becoming a troll" should be required reading for ST. Although practicing Nevin's advice would probably drive down readership and posting as many come here for content but stay for the flame-a-thons.

In the coming centuries, evolution will probably take a back seat to global warming as the majority of species will be unable to keep up with the exponential shift of climate change. Species that can evolve relatively quickly will rule the roost and usher in a floral-biotic change unheralded since the last big die-off.

All hail our heirs and masters of adaptability..........the cockroach.

i'm not lending my voice to a consensus on altruism. altruism is something the researcher wants to see. he's getting a grant from someone somewhere who wants him to find it.

"did he who made the lamb make thee?"

the second law of thermodynamics

Credit: Tony Bird

wish i could find the quote, i thought from desert solitaire, but i can't. seems like abbey suggests, as the lion pounces on the zebra at the end of a short, intense chase, that "love" is somehow involved in the whole thing. wishful thinking from someone still, essentially, mickeymouse christian at heart?

interesting topic. i do not have much to add here being that i studied literature in college. i can however say that
based on what they tried to teach me in college, using the word "like" makes it, by definition, not a metaphor.

If you find yourself typing out the words, "It's kinda like if…" then stop immediately and delete what you've written... Metaphors—comparing the situation you're debating to a different situation—are the cyanide of online arguments.

Many antipsychotic drugs that are used on schizophrenics are dopmamine antagonists. Meaning too much dopamine makes you psychotic. Many illegal drugs are dopamine agonists, meaning they provide a flood of dopamine. Too much Cocaine produces psychosis, so the balance of Dopamine theory holds up in that case. Brain chemistry is immensely complicated. Some of the drugs blockade the H1 hystamine receptors, which causes severe weight gain. There are some terrific papers on this.

The role of each receptor is actually poorly understood. Some of the drugs have been found, after the fact, to hit the adrenergic receptors while others hit certain Serotonin receptors. Again, many of the older antipsychotics do indeed block dopamine.

There is a long period of trial and error to find the correct drug to treat each individual's particular problem.

So..in this case, William Blake's position that excess is a good thing doesn't hold up as far as sanity is concerned.

Let's talk, first of all, about the basic principles of science since we're dealing with foundational things. Science deals with a matrix when we're talking about natural science. We're talking about the way things are in a material universe, there is a matrix of things. You have to have matter, you have to have force, you have to have energy, you have to have space and you have to have time. That is...that is Herbert Spencer's great achievement, he died in 1903, he said, "Everything in the universe can be deposited in one of these categories...time, force, action, space and matter." Force and action comprising energy. There has to be time, there has to be energy which is force and action, there has to be space, and there has to be matter. And by the way, those five things which he defined in that order are all in Genesis 1, "In the beginning...that's time...God...that's force...created...that's action...the heavens...that's space...and the earth...that's matter." The matrix is in Genesis 1:1, that is a profound scientific statement. The universe in essence is a...is a matrix of space, time, matter, and energy. And all of it has to be existing at the same conflux. It all has to come together or none of it exists. One cannot exist without the other. The entire continuum must have existed simultaneously from the beginning. That is why you find it all in Genesis 1:1, it all had to be there. Science says it has to be there and Scripture says it is there.

Now once the matrix comes into instantaneous simultaneous existence, its processes then are designed to operate in an orderly fashion, going forward. All the different phenomena within the matrix of nature and life are sustained by the forces that exist in that matrix. Time goes on, space goes on, energy goes on, matter goes on. It is all instantaneously and simultaneously coming into existence, it is then not only brought into existence by some external force and source, but it is then kept in prefect balance and function by that same power. It is sustained by the same force that brought it into existence. But everything that God made was made in six days. And it says in Genesis 2:2, "God ended His work which He had made." God stopped making anything. If you know science, you understand that that is scientifically accurate, nothing is being created, nothing is coming into existence, nothing has since creation, day six, and God's cessation of His work. The complete cessation of creative activity has been, by the way, in advertently recognized by modern science and they call it the law, the first law of thermodynamics and the first law of thermodynamics is called the conservation of mass and energy...the conservation of mass and energy. This is THE most and universal and certain of all scientific principles. Science has shown and verified that there is nothing being created in the known universe today. Things are doing what they do but not coming into existence newly. There is nothing new in the universe. In fact, the Bible tells us this in the most unaffected, the most simple, the most direct ways without ever defending itself as if its made some statement contrary to fact.

For example, in the words that come to us in the ninth chapter of Nehemiah, "In praise to God, in blessing to God," we read in Nehemiah 9:6, "Thou alone art the Lord, Thou hast made the heavens, the heaven of heavens with all their hosts, the earth and all that is in them, the seas and all that is in them. Thou dost give life to all of them." You made it all, everything that exists in the heaven and the earth and the seas, everything that lives, you made it all. That is an affirmation of God's completed and ended creation. Everything that is You made, and You made it all in those six days of creation.

I think it's in Isaiah, there are a lot of Scriptures that we could look up but there is another one, I think it's in Isaiah...yes, chapter 40 verse 26, "Lift up your eyes and see who has created these stars, the one who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name, not one of them is missing." Nothing comes into existence and nothing goes out of existence. This is the law, the first law of thermodynamics, the law of the conservation of mass and energy. Nothing is being created, nothing is going out of existence. And this is exactly what the Bible says in the most unaffected way and without any scientific pretension. For example, Ecclesiastes 1:9, "That which has been is that which will be and that which has been done is that which will be done and there is nothing new under the sun." In the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, verse 14, "I know that everything God does will remain forever." There is nothing to add to it, there is nothing to take from it. It is God so...it is God who has so worked it, that which is has been already, that which will be has already been, for God seeks what has passed by. This is the continuum of the creative reality, spontaneous generation, new creation doesn't happen. What perpetuates the creation is the conservation of mass and energy. And every organism that is a living organism has the seed of life within itself to reproduce itself.

Now there's a second law of thermodynamics and science has labeled this law, and the second law of thermodynamics is this...nothing new is being created, nothing is being destroyed, that is in the sense the first law. The second law is, however, all things are tending toward increasing disorder. This is the second law of thermodynamics. Energy is running down. It is losing its capacity to perform its work. There is increasing disorder. That means that slowly but observably the processes that God set in motion are winding down. We're heading toward the death of this creation. Now they don't have an explanation for that and it's a very hard thing to come up with an evolutionary view that everything is getting more complex, more intelligent and better while at the same time they can show scientifically that energy is dissipating and everything is tending toward chaos and disorder. All energy is running down and heading toward being incapable of performing its function.

Now God didn't make the world that way. God did not make the world that way. In fact, when God finished His creation, Genesis 1:31, He looked at it all and said, "It's...what?...it's very good." How do we explain what's happened? The Bible is the only place you can go for an explanation. Science has no explanation for the second law of thermodynamics. It has no explanation for the first law. Why is it that everything came into existence in a matrix at one time and continues in that same matrix? Why is it that if this is all a matter of chance, coincidence and randomness that that's not happening again and again and again and again? Why is it that it has come into existence in such a matrix of complexity and sustained itself in that matrix of complexity? That, in fact, is what drove Einstein crazy, if you would call him crazy, because he couldn't figure out the power was that held everything together. And how then do you explain this slow death? What is the reason for that? Only the Bible explains the matrix, the power of God is the invisible power that holds it all together and sustains it. And only the Bible explains why it's all tending toward disorder and death and the explanation comes in Genesis 3, it is the Fall and God curses creation. God curses creation. You read Genesis 3, man is cursed, woman is cursed. Sin enters into the world, the land is cursed, the ground is cursed. You have to till and work by the sweat of your brow to get something out of the land and fight all the cursed elements, the thorns, the weeds. And man has to fight against the weakness of his own body and his weariness and illness and disease because death enters the world and women have pain in childbearing. The ground is cursed. The whole creation is cursed. Read Romans 8:20 to 22. In Romans 8:20 to 22 the whole creation groans under the weight of the curse.

Science has no explanation for the first law of thermodynamics which they are glad to label but cannot explain how the complex matrix can come into existence in a moment, which all of which is required for anything to exist out of nothing. They cannot explain that nor can they explain how it holds itself together because there's no way to find the power that holds it together scientifically, nor can they explain the principle of disintegration and disorder in the second law of thermodynamics. The Bible explains both perfectly.

The Bible also explains that the second law of thermodynamics without calling it that is working its way down to an end, and the end must come and it will come, only it won't die a slow death, it will die an immediate death, as I just read you, when the Lord Jesus destroys this cursed universe and establishes a new heaven and a new earth. And in the new heaven and the new earth, there will be a different matrix. There will be a different matrix. There will be no time, there will be no space, there will be the energy of eternal life. It will be a completely different matrix and there will be no second law of thermodynamics. There will be no death, no sickness, no sorrow, no dying, no decay, no unrighteousness, no trouble, to pain, no destruction, and so forth and so forth.

So, you see, when you talk about science at the very basic level, it is only the Bible that gives you any sensible understanding for the way things really are. And we would expect that the one who made things the way they are, knows the way they are, and tells us the truth about the way they are. I stand so firmly before you as somebody who is not a scientist, by any stretch of the imagination, to say to you that I have read as extensively as I can read in science, particularly in those many, many months when I was going through Genesis chapters 1, 2 and 3, trying to understand science, true science, comparison to Scripture, and I have yet to find and I am supported by Christian scientists all over the country and all over the world who study far more in depth and more diligently than I who back up the fact that there has never ben any...any scientific discovery that is in true fact the way it really is that contradicts the biblical record...never...never.
___

The message has been around forever!! It just takes aHeightened conscienseness ,
and a Willing Soul to transpire Gods Spirit into communication.

I think that we are evolving. Environmental factors still affect who lives and who dies. We like to think that doctors keep every baby alive and that anyone who is an idiot or a genius can have kids but it is a bit egocentric to think that we are somehow above survival of the fittest.

But what is fit? Maybe money through inheritance is fit. Maybe good looks and no brains are fit. Evolution is a subtle thing and what is happening to us now in every way is part of the process.

We need to ignore everything affecting people that happens after they are past the child bearing age but even that is changing.

It's a shame that we won't ever be around to see how it turns out. We might become flesh eating monsters or we might become balls of intelligent life.

Base, the two known variants of the dopamine receptor gene are DRD2 A1 and DRD2 A2. In the USA, about 30% of the population carries the A1 gene. This gene expresses about 40% less D2 dopamine receptors than the A2 variant. Less receptors means less dopamine uptake, means unhappiness. This sub population is prone to addictions, such as alcohol, or climbing! Some researchers postulate that the A2 variant evolved from the A1.

As for altruism, I think that it is genetic. Survival of a species is more important than survival of an individual when it comes to natural selection. Sacrificial behavior that saves a large number of others that have similar altruistic genetics will mean the altruism genes get passed on and flourish.

I just read Donald's recommended articles on neanderthal and a couple of others on the same page - very interesting. I think we have to be careful of conclusions based on one human pelvis and one newborn head however as neanderthal provides one of the best examples in the literature of bad conclusions based on a sample of one. Marcelin Boule wrote three volumes on the first type specimen, describing it as "stooped and beetle browed", without ever noticing that it was an old and extremely arthritic specimen.

That said, what I found most interesting was the notion that neanderthals brain grew to maturity at about the same rate as other great apes whereas the human brain grows slower and thus has a longer learning period and time for more neurons to connect. This could well be what distinguishes Homo sapiens from all the others and explain the explosion in culture about 60,000 years ago.

The other interesting recent finding that explained a lot to me was the discovery that neanderthals went through a population bottleneck before Homo sapiens arrived. According to these new findings, although they were numerous at one time, there were few of them and rather inbred by the time Homo sapiens arrived. The event that precipitated their decline in numbers was probably the advent of an ice age or perhaps an epidemic.

We have never found signs of great battles between the two so have always wondered why neanderthals became extinct. If they were few in number and inbred, this would have caused genetic defects, still born births and high infant mortality, which makes their demise more understandable. It also means the one new born head specimen we have, also might not be representative.

Human intelligence may be close to its evolutionary limit. Various lines of research suggest that most of the tweaks that could make us smarter would hit limits set by the laws of physics.

Brain size, for instance, helps up to a point but carries diminishing returns: brains become energy-hungry and slow. Better “wiring” across the brain also would consume energy and take up a disproportionate amount of space.

Making wires thinner would hit thermodynamic limitations similar to those that affect transistors in computer chips: communication would get noisy.

Humans, however, might still achieve higher intelligence collectively. And technology, from writing to the Internet, enables us to expand our mind outside the confines of our body.

"If you do not learn to master your rage....your rage will become your master. That's what you were gonna say, right?"

Falls into favorite family flix folder!

when the Lord Jesus destroys this cursed universe and establishes a new heaven and a new earth. And in the new heaven and the new earth, there will be a different matrix.

That's not really working for me, that Jesus has to come and destroy dad's perfect creation in order to make it better. You'd think these all powerful creators of universes could get it right the first time, or they weren't as perfect and all knowing as they/we like to think. And if they're so all knowing and all powerful, why can't they show up and improve it a little without destroying it? It's so all or nothing with these God types.....

"Love this house you built dad, it's bigger and better than anyone has ever built one. Comfy too. But there's this annoying little mosquito buzzing around, I've decided to name him Satan. You see dad, unfortunately you weren't able to do away with this Satan bug, so...surely you won't mind if I burn the house down and build an even better one, right?

Of course, all species are always in the process of evolution at all times. But you have to understand that the process of genetic replication and repair is also evolving to become more accurate and sophisticated, at least in higher species.

2. Is group selection...

Altruism may be a combination of genetic programming and social programming... Depending on your definition of altruism. You can define altruism as a conscious choice. In that case, it's purely social conditioning.

SLR: But you have to understand that the process of genetic replication and repair is also evolving to become more accurate and sophisticated, at least in higher species.

Do you have any links to support this assertion? I'd be interested to see them if that's so. Lots of 'lower' species have sophisticated and accurate genetic repair capabilities, much less so in 'higher' species.

I left next door to a famous biologist. He has been working with all sorts of psychoactive drugs, mainly hallucinogens. He got a big grant and had a huge number of them assayed for which receptor they hit. He knows all of the receptor sites, such as you mentioned.

He worked with hallucinogens, because with those, they generally hit one or two receptors really hard, like a spotlight. He can correlate them with behaviour and experience. So it is more or less a way to see what each receptor does. Pretty fascinating.

If you like, PM me and I will hook you up with him. He has a lot of unpublished material that he might let you read. Some of it is amazing, because all of these pschotropic legal drugs have also been assayed.

Even though the drug companies state the mechanism of action is unknown, that is not accurate. They know which receptors get hit, but they don't know why they work. Also, some drugs work with some people and others don't. You can have ten people with the same psychiatric diagnosis and sometimes this person needs this one and that person needs another. Point being, mental illness is very complicated.

Those drugs are also not to be taken lightly. It is a bad idea to go see your family doc, say you are depressed, and have him put you on a drug. Your brain will adjust to this drug and it changes the entire chemistry sometimes. When you stop the drug, you get sick.

BB, you posted all of this matrix stuff on another thread. I can't understand it. Why don't you get your hands dirty and talk about biology and chemistry.

The core of H.L. Menkin's social philosophy was rather simple. He believed that it is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant, and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting.

Galileo said,

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect, has intended for us to forego their use.

I see this in your posts, and it is really kind of sad to watch.

You post a convoluted mess describing the world in odd terms while choosing to ignore simple science that has stood up to a hundred years of scrutiny, as well as being consistent with many other theories discovered later.

Why don't you just come out and say it? It isn't like we will like you less or anything. It won't make you look any less intelligent. It just means that you are uncomfortable with things that conflict with your faith. That's fine. Dr. F is the only one that will rag on you, and this ain't his thread.

Hey Base, thank you for the offer. I am just a biochemist with too much time in my hands, so I read all kinds of publications. I am afraid that your friend is too much ahead of me to have a meaningful conversation.

As the evolution goes, I vote for a human-computer hybrid, then a complete transfer of a human mind into a computer. The artificial intelligence is pretty close. Of course, if we survive long enough. And I don’t think that nuclear wars are the biggest threat. We have global warming, overpopulation, pandemics, depleting resources, supervolcanos, asteroids, and who knows what else to wary about. So it is very likely that most of humanity will be will be wiped out at some point. Then, it depends whether the remaining population can carry on. Maybe that is the cure for our problems?

bruce, we used to go to an elderly, world-traveling accountant to have our taxes done. this guy had a collection of formidable, scary-looking weapons from a certain south sea island on his wall, but he had an interesting story to go along with them.

this particular tribe, he said, when there was a dispute with the tribe next door, would arm themselves to the teeth, as would their enemy du jour. they would square off against each other, fiercely engaging in battle--to the point where someone drew first blood. then the battle was called off, and the dispute settled in favor of the blood-drawing tribe while the "victim" got patched up and everyone went home.

"now i ask you," our accountant said, "who is more civilized, them or us?"

war is essentially a ritual activity, as with every religion. healyje had a not very negative experience in the military, so he closes his eyes to this aspect of humanity, while fretting about the ridiculousness of religion and human sacrifice. as an aside, catholics "celebrate" human sacrifice every day and eat the body of their "victim". they use these very words. their sterilized ritual embodies the identical myth, if you can even call it a myth.

In thinking about topic one a little more, I'm basically sticking with my original answer but with a little clarification. First off, I'll bet that evolution has been slowing down in humans during the last 5,000 years ago or so. Why? Because death is the engine of natural selection and, through time, humans survival rates have increased. I think Jan hit it on the head. Most of the significant evolving right now is going on in Africa and Asia, where third world living conditions keep the "culling rate" high.

That link of McCreel's early on indicating that there are strong signs of very recent evolution is perfectly consistent with my thinking on this subject. The life expectancy and low infant mortality rates that we see now in the first world are a very recent phenomenon. To the extent that the whole world could have them, I think classical evolution would come to a near screeching halt in the human race. What would continue to happen is that our genetic diversity would continue to increase. And this is always a good thing as an insurance against future culling events.

Of course there is still sexual selection, which doesn't require death for new genes to proliferate. But even more than that, technology will alter the equation. Some technologies will undoubtedly be selection pressures thesmselves. So, yes, I believe humans will ultimately evolve significantly. But it won't be because of "classical evolution".

healyje, seems like the last time the subject came up you had been spending your time writing press releases for the navy based on the usual prevarications from your surfer pad in hawaii, fighting off maitai-armed wahinis, no? sorry if i got the wrong impression. tell us about the gore you dipped with and i'll tell you a few war stories of my own.

yonkers, i read in arctic dreams, which i think had some pretty good scientific reporting, that the polar bear has evolved from the grizzly bear since the last ice age, over about 10,000 years. among the remarkable adaptations are its webbed feet, and hair which, even though it appears white, directs light and heat into the bear's body rather than reflecting it away. pretty sophisticated optic fiber there.

if you don't think evolution can happen fast, just look at all the breeds of canis familiaris--all members of the same "species".

if you think "natural selection" is the only important thing in evolution, you need to get a bit more sophisticated than charles darwin's 19th-century thinking. life has a built-in propensity to experiment, and it can experiment wildly and rapidly. none of the gene-splicing idiots tampering with it have the beginning of an appreciation of that.

Tony, I'm well aware that there are two parts to evolution. The first part is all about random mutations leading to new, heritable traits. Basically, if the mutation doesn't kill you before you have a child or two, it gets into the breeding population. That's why large, long-breeding populations will have a lot of genetic diversity.

But it takes a selection pressure (or isolation of a population) to allow these new genes to proliferate over and above their competitors. It's a zero sum game, afterall with respect to each individual. The only way a whole population moves in some novel direction is through selection pressure.

By the way, you are missing the point entirely when you refer to evolution in polar bears and such. I've said nothing about not believing that evolution can be fast. My POINT is that, with humans, our civization is responsible for the slowing down of evolution. Except that we will utlimately, vastly speed it up.

i think you've got it wrong, yonkers. the experimentation takes place in the reproductive cells themselves, not, somehow, throughout the body of an individual, then going into the reproductive cells. there are too many cells in the body of a grizzly bear for it to get the beginnings of webbed feet. as the species moves into a polar environment--or as the polar environment develops--the hunting of seals becomes something important. i don't think you know how the experimentation takes place, which is my point. the scientific fairy tale we get is that a gene gets zapped from a cosmic ray from outer space. might as well have some divinity making mudpies and breathing life into them.

this is borne out by the standard teaching i got on the subject at the university. the development of sexuality resulted in very rapid evolution because of the combinant factor. offspring became the shake of two dice, not the "daughtering" of existing individuals. the experimentation takes place in the gonads. and the fact that it seems to be so well directed ought to be a clue. how come we get grizzly bears "experimenting" with webbed feet, instead of green feathers like a quetzal? a lot of people will suggest "intelligent design," but i don't think they've got it right either. but if random cosmic rays were the "agent", we'd have a lot more green feathers on grizzly bears.

TB, just curious, are you clear on the distinction and relationship between genotype and phenotype? or how about the role of repair mechanisms in replication and transcription even to the extent that these repair enzymatic performances are regulated themselves by natural selection? or how about simply gene regulation? there are whole courses in colleges now covering just this subject. Your posts suggest you are out of your league here, but maybe it's more your writing style than your experiences in the field.

Eeyonkee, nice to see you're reading Better Angels. It is a hopeful message. (Esp against such a historical backdrop of barbaric savagery.)

.....

As far as interesting evolutionary topics go, one of mine is yours and others I think - the largely unpredictable interplay between cultural evo and bio-genetic evo. Cultural evolution is such a powerful force on the species - it's created mind-blowing change to our environs, it's wed us to tech of every sort and made us dependent on it to such an overwhelming extent it's bound to steer if not careen the gene pool into brand new unprecedented territory - and pretty quickly, relatively speaking, I would think, thanks to entropy always at work - and certainly piquing my interest and concern - along some directions not a few of us, given our values, would probably judge weaker and disappointing rather than stronger and encouraging.

As a hint to this, no longer are poor eyesight or hernias being selected against, let alone conditions like autism. No longer are the slow or lazy being selected against. No longer are cheaters or freeloaders being selected against. Seems to me if these characteristics ever are selected against again esp to the extent they were in the past (leading to robustness), it's going to have to wait another (less environmentally friendly) era or epoch. It's quite a predicament. About all I'm confident about in this regard is that in the end, or rather, at the end of each of the cyclic eras or epochs to come, one way or another it sorts out.

On the hopeful side, our cultural evolution has led to a vast amount of knowledge about ourselves in the universe (which hopefully intelligent beings, communities and such far in the future will be able to employ); also to a vast amount of different kinds of freedoms as well as abilities esp for the current generations and also us climbers. :)

.....

Lately, I've been contemplating / cultivating an alternative lifeskill as part of living-in-the-now strategy: the ability to not dwell on things in the abysmal depths of evolutionary theory, evolutionary psych or even general thought - esp those that point to unresolvable life predicaments (just as a long long time ago I learned it was an ability, a lifeskill, to not dwell on our death or our mortality) -In the interest of continued health and wellbeing.

Or maybe I'm just getting old. :)

An "allelic" expression...

"Evolutionary output is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose."

gene-splicing idiots... the scientific fairy tale we get is that a gene gets zapped from a cosmic ray.... we get grizzly bears "experimenting" with webbed feet, instead of green feathers like a quetzal?

It seems to me if life experience in science education were more like life experience in climbing with respect to a show of skills being readily observable where the rubber meets the rock (for better or worse, at the risk of reputation if not life) all the talk - the talking it up- wouldn't be so unreserved.

.....

if you think "natural selection" is the only important thing in evolution, you need to get a bit more sophisticated than charles darwin's 19th-century thinking

It's the only "important" (EDIT: push or pressure or) creative force identified that leads to an accumulated buildup of complex functionality in living systems that yields ongoing (EDIT: adaptation) adaptability. This isn't just the claim of 19th century, it's the modern claim of the 21st century as well as taught in modern evolution courses in all the world's top colleges and universities.

Kepler survey analysis pegs an extrapolated number of earth-size planets in the Milkyway at '17 billion'. About twenty percent of galaxies are large spirals like the Milkyway which would be about 100 billion of such galaxies. Do the math of 17bn * 100bn and you get like 1.7 sextillion.

From that you can pick some percentage you think might be in hospitable galaxies, in a star's habitable zone and have water, that have life, and then intelligent life. Even if you came up with one form of intelligent life per galaxy that's still a lot. The problem is that's still a ridiculously sparse distribution of intelligent life - far too sparse for there to ever have been, or for there ever to be, contact between them or UFOs here.

Even if you decided there were a million planets with intelligent life in the Milkyway, at a 100 lightyears across (light year = 6 trillion miles), those are still unbelievable distances such that for there to be any contact you'd be talking time travel or some other real trick up your sleeve to accomplish it. That makes the idea of even a single UFO contact outlandishly implausible, let alone the idea of Earth as a regular 'hub' for alien visits the UFO crowd would have you believe.

It's the only "important" creative force identified that leads to an accumulated buildup of complex functionality in living systems that yields ongoing adaptability. This isn't just the claim of 19th century, it's the modern claim of the 21st century as well as taught in modern evolution courses in all the world's top colleges and universities.

Good post HFCS.

Evolution is one of those subjects that has a very few, disarmingly simple concepts. Yet, it does require a lot of thinking about the interplay of those concepts to really understand it. I've been reading books about it (purely an avocation) for years and still get new insights.

From such simple beginnings such magificence and spectacle. That is evolution. (Not to mention climbing.) To think that last night's BCS championship game, for instance, in all its detail including the blowout, was an evolutionary product billions of years in the making; or an example of what hydrogen atoms do given enough time banging about - that's pretty damn astonishing.

So incredible some of us "just above average apes" find it impossible to believe. Gobble gobble. :)

.....

As an aside to Healyje's post, and as another topic of interest (to a few?), sometimes I've wondered about the gene pools of other ETI's in the galaxy. (Assuming they exist in the first place.) For instance do they show more or less variation than ours. If the variation of gene pools of 100 of our closest ETIs were plotted out on a distribution curve, where would we stack up in the pile? And sometimes I think that the very variation that led to our evolution, incl our evolutionary robustness, might also turn out, in the end, to be our undoing. How ironic that would be.

Sometimes one can be honest to a fault. (So they say. Game theory, too.) Could our species, either already or at some point down the line, and esp, because we all have to share the same arena, court or field (that being this one and only planet), be diverse to a fault?

Imagine the "Hirogens" (ripped from Star Trek) as an ETI. Imagine that their variation or diversity both in their gene pool and on their planet in their history never became an existential threat because they had not one but two sibling planets to spread out to - providing them benefits unavailable to us H. sapiens, eg.., dozens to hundreds of extra generations in cultural evo to get their act together.

as the species [grizzlies] moves into a polar environment--or as the polar environment develops--the hunting of seals becomes something important. i don't think you know how the experimentation takes place, which is my point.

HFCS responded:

TB, just curious, are you clear on the distinction and relationship between genotype and phenotype?

It is funny that you both can be right, to some extent. Phenotype coud actually speed up the evolution of webbed feet in grizzlies. We can safely assume that the webbed feet are the result of a genetic mutation(s), so HFCS is right. But the environmental factors could direct and speed up this evolution, because phenotypes can be inherited, so Tony B. is also right. (Of course the rest of Tony B.’s post is pure nonsense).

It is extremely important to understand the concept of epigenetics and its role in evolution. I posted some info on epigenetics before, but it got ignored. I will try again.

This article is fairly easy to understand and it is a MUST read if we want to have any meaningful discussion on evolution.

It is well known (Hartl and Clark 2007) that new advantageous mutations appearing in a population face an immediate evolutionary hurdle, in that they start at a very low frequency (depending on the population size) and can easily be lost by genetic drift. If, however, the new heritable variant is causally dependent on high-frequency (possibly environmentally induced) epigenetic variation, the novel phenotype may appear at a nonnegligible frequency from the onset, which would facilitate the role of natural selection in overcoming stochastic loss.
The scenario sketched above is consistent with West-Eberhard’s (2003) suggestion that sometimes genes are “followers” rather than initiators of evolutionary change, meaning that they stabilize phenotypic changes that are started by epigenetic or developmental processes. Indeed, epigenetic inheritance systems could provide a reasonable mechanistic link between West-Eberhard’s interesting but rather speculative suggestions about the role of developmental plasticity in evolution on one hand, and standard population genetic models of evolutionary change on the other.

The potential importance of epigenetic effects can be explored by either manipulating the level of epigenetic effects (e.g., through the use of a demethylating agent such as 5-azacytidine [5-azaC] or endocrine-disrupting chemicals) or by exposing organisms to extreme environments that may trigger epigenetic changes that alter the phenotype of individuals with the same genotype. By growing the progeny of genetically identical individuals that have been exposed to different treatments in a common environment, a study can identify the contribution of heritable sources of phenotypic variation that are not based on DNA sequences. For example, methylation patterns and associated changes in early versus late flowering that resulted from 5-aza-C treatments of Linum usitatissimum persisted
not only throughout the lifetime of the individual but also in lines that were five to nine generations beyond the treatment generation (Fieldes et al. 2005)Crews and colleagues (2007)showed that rat females exposed to endocrine-disrupting chemicals preferred unexposed males up to three generations after exposure. External temperature has been shown to change methylation patterns, which induce early flowering time in Triticum (Sherman and Talbert 2002) and Arabidopsis(Burn et al. 1993). Offspring of individuals exposed to these kinds of different treatments can then be grown in common environments to identify whether some of these environmentally induced differences are heritable and stable (Bossdorf et al. 2008, Johannes et al. 2008).

Way earlier I was going to comment on epigenetics, then I remembered lessons learned from going deep on subjects here which amounts to mixed company. (Here I'm recalling a thread of mine a few years back on electricity and electrocution by battery.) If I've learned anything from this site, it is that you can't go too deeply on a subject (unfortunately) without the thread's contents careening off uncontrollably, unmeaningfully.

I don't think we're equipped here in mixed company to adequately distinguish epigenetics from epigenesis, etc.. that would lead on to any meaningful discussion. Could be wrong, though.

I also realize that it is difficult to have a meaningful conversation on technical subjects on ST. And I am not a teacher either. That's why I tried to stay away from those discussions. But I am at home, my wife is at work, and I am bored. I have already posted all my climbing material, which is very limited since I am a noob.

It is a very different discussion from that I usually have with my colleagues, but, perhaps, more fun.

I don't like to insult people, but sometimes I just want to quote Wolfgang Pauli, “it is not even wrong”.

You mentioned in some gun discussion you were Polish. I used google translator. Which apparently was not entirely correct, that's AI for you, lol.

.....

I've mentioned this terrific episode of Star Trek Voyager in past posts at least a couple of times. Distant Origin. Has anybody seen it? Storyline is intelligent. A terrific speculation. Not to mention some high human-voth drama in deep space. It's all about evolution. Ties right in with this thread: interesting topics of evolution. Check it out when you get the time...

Hypothesis: 1. a proposition made as a basis for reasoning, without the assumption of its truth. 2 a supposition made as a starting point for further investigation from known facts.

Theory: 1. a supposition or system of ideas explaining something, esp. one based on general principles independent of the particul things to be explained.

Source: Canadian Oxford Dictionary.

Let's try to use these words correctly, eh?

Darwin's "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life", usually known as "On the Origin of Species" was perhaps both theory and hypothesis, in that there was considerable evidence for what Darwin proposed, and little to the contrary, but the underlying mechanism wasn't really understood until the discovery of DNA.

I need to study epigenetics. It is currently a big hole in my understanding of evolution. Here's the thing, though. If the logic and evidence pans out, I'll be only too willing to change my views on the topic and will be perfectly fine knowing that my former worldview got some things wrong. Eyes wide open.

I think I may have found what Werner is talking about. In going through my library, I see a book my Charles T. Darwin, called 'The theory of the Origin of Species'. Turns out that Charles T. Darwin was to scientific books what Weird Al Yangevich was to pop music. Easy mistake to make.

Nobody needs to study epigenetics. Just some basic understanding is sufficient :)

The theory of evolution is correct, but there are still debates on the mechanisms by which our genes evolve. Epigeneticaly driven evolution neatly explains why we adapt so fast to changing environments. The old school evolution driven exclusively by random mutations couldn't explain that phenomenon.

yonker's last reference seems to assert that mere random mutation makes no sense, and living organisms have a built-in propensity to experiment and adapt. quod erat demonstrandum?

of course we must hunt for chemical mechanisms. we gather experts from wide spectrums. rarely can they communicate, but the declaration of the verge of a breakthrough comes right from the boilerplate used by every respectable journal in academia. thinking on the subject is about to be revolutionized. breathtaking. riley can't wait to tell the first nearby female. but not so fast:

At this time in the science of epigenetics, the relevance of heritable epigenetic effects for the ecology and evolution of most organisms is still highly speculative.

well, maybe there's progress here after all. they're using the S-word, right out in front of god and the department chair.

Butyrate is a short chain fatty acid derived from the microbial fermentation of dietary fibers in the colon. In the last decade, multiple beneficial effects of butyrate at intestinal and extraintestinal level have been demonstrated. The mechanisms of action of butyrate are different and many of these involve an epigenetic regulation of gene expression through the inhibition of histone deacetylase. There is a growing interest in butyrate because its impact on epigenetic mechanisms will lead to more specific and efficacious therapeutic strategies for the prevention and treatment of different diseases ranging from genetic/metabolic conditions to neurological degenerative disorders. This review is focused on recent data regarding the epigenetic effects of butyrate with potential clinical implications in human medicine.

Healyje, that's epigenetics as well. don't you think? That's what epigenetics does, it regulates which genes are expressed and which are suppressed. Whether it is influenced by gut flora or some other factor is irrelevant.

That's right Riley. But we need to remember that because epigeneticaly driven changes are reversible and short termed if not reinforced. It won't change our genes, just their expression. Epigeneticaly driven evolution alone doesn’t produce new species, for that you need a genetic mutation. It is postulated that when both meet, evolution accelerates.

I am impressed that people on this thread actually read technical papers, and I know it is not easy when the subject is outside ones area of expertise. Unfortunately, I also know that most people don’t want to read, and/or can’t comprehend, technical writing. How can we explain science to them? There are some very good magazines such as Scientific American, Discover, or even Popular Science. They are good TV programs and there is the Internet. There is no excuse to be ignorant.
People use medications that were made by genetic manipulations but they don’t believe that evolution is driven by changes to our genome. People don’t believe in relativity, but they use GPS’s every day. Some distrust science so much that they would buy a “health” supplement just because it was advertised as “discovered by a single mom”. Sad.

don't overlook the role of supernovas and the triple alpha process, which produces the element carbon, and which caused fred hoyle to stop being an atheist.

actually, not... as far as I know, Fred was an atheist for life.

Tony, what do you know about the triple-alpha process? other than what you have read others write about it. This is not the first place you've posted it as an example of one of your points. I'm just not sure what that point is...

Re: I wonder if the "end of history illusion" (that psychologist Daniel Gilbert has demonstrated) biases our interpretations of data relevant to the question "1. Are humans still evolving?"

Gilbert's empirical focus has been on personal "ends of history," but seems plausible (to me) that it could extend to our perceptions and interpretations of evidence on collective "ends of history."

The latest paper on this phenomena was just published last week in Science.

abstract: "We measured the personalities, values, and preferences of more than 19,000 people who ranged in age from 18 to 68 and asked them to report how much they had changed in the past decade and/or to predict how much they would change in the next decade. Young people, middle-aged people, and older people all believed they had changed a lot in the past but would change relatively little in the future. People, it seems, regard the present as a watershed moment at which they have finally become the person they will be for the rest of their lives. This “end of history illusion” had practical consequences, leading people to overpay for future opportunities to indulge their current preferences."

triple-alpha seems to be an interesting turn in the road of evolution. i was kinda hoping you'd talk about it a little, ed.

the point i've heard made was that when fred hoyle came to understand its implications, he declared, "the universe is a put-up job," and thereafter seemed to back away from his staunch atheism. of course, i can't begin to appreciate the technical aspects, other than that it's supposedly the way carbon is produced in the fusion reactions of a supernova, and carbon, the key element of life, only happens due to some very fine and improbable balance of forces or events.

for those who don't know fred hoyle, he's the cambridge astronomer "credited" with coining the term "big bang", which he at first said he suggested as a joke, but i think he eventually decided to take credit for it, since it became such a durable idea. he was noted for his atheism, prior to the triple alpha business, and, from what i've heard, a general disdain for biologists. :-)

i guess we have different impressions of hoyle's beliefs, ed. i'll have to go digging to find where i read all this. might have been in one of simon conway-morris's books--he's a cambridger and seems to have likewise taken a step back from atheism in his philosophy of evolution.

about Fred's beliefs... he was an iconoclastic personality... it didn't matter what the dogma was, he attacked it. I think that was his point about evolution (and about cosmology, etc...) and an important demonstration that you might come to the point of "disbelief" without some other "belief" to replace it, in other words, you might just say you don't know, which is not the same thing as saying that anything goes.

do you really want to talk about triple-alpha?
it seems to have an over inflated interpretation.

hoyle was certainly a personality--probably worth getting a good biography on him--any recommendations?

his take on evolution seems to be that he finds too much serendipity to ascribe it solely to "random", multiplied by an infinity of time. perhaps his remark about the triple alpha was made in passing, but it does seem to indicate some "special treatment" for carbon. the nice thing about your posts, ed, is that they're made in your own words, far more educative than the barrage of dumps and links we usually get on here. i'm still carrying around what you had to say about dimensionality.

hoyle offered a remarkable metaphor anent "random" evolution. he said it would be the equivalent of a tornado hitting a junkyard and leaving a 747 behind. he seemed to have become a proponent of panspermia, an idea which was also attractive to francis crick. and some have called him the atheist of intelligent design.

Clearly Hoyle didn't really understand evolution as that famous metaphor shows a complete misunderstanding of it. Only the first part of evolution is random. There is nothing random about the second part, the part where natural selection comes in to play. It is unpredictable, but anything but random. Sheesh, Darwin understood that in the 1850s!

It is interesting how Lamarc’s ideas have resurfaced with the advance of epigenetics. Was Lamarc right and Darwin wrong? Can we evolve by “willing” it? Well, kind off.
Epigenetics elegantly explains how an organism can adapt so quickly to the new environment. We understand which chemical modifications to chromatin, DNA and RNA influence gene expression, which in turn modify our bodies and minds. What is still unclear is the mechanism by which epigenetics changes nucleotides that lead to genetically changed individuals and new species. One of the candidates is deamination of cytosine which would lead to its transformation to thymine. Environmental pressures can suppress expression a gene by methylation of cytosine (among others). Methylation of cytosine can then lead to its transformation to thymine. Scientists put a lot of work into finding other factors, but it is all quite new and needs more work.

The growing consensus among evolutionists is that environmental factors can accelerate evolution, which, of course, is some vindication for Lamarc.

"Well, a lot of far-fetched stuff has the theoretical potential to revolutionize the study of evolutionary biology, including the possibility that the DNA of any species is transcribed only when there’s a plant within 100 miles."

"Although I’m a skeptic, and seen as a diehard supporter of neo-Darwinism, I think that an objective observer would agree that that that current paradigm is working pretty well. I haven’t yet heard the guns and shouts of revolutionaries on the horizon."

Been thinking the same thing, moosedrool. Poor Lamarc. Epigenetics is a bit of a game changer.

A book I've read that had a big influence on my thinking about the evolution of humans is 'Eco Homo', by Noel T. Boaz. The book explains that very large changes in brain size took place in hominids over the Pleistocene, which was a time of extreme climate change (four ice ages along with the in-between times). The author argues that the relationship is causal, that rapid climate change provided the enviromental pressure that ultimately led to rapid evolution in hominids. I'd always assumed that the environmetal pressure worked by a combination of there being phenotypic solutions to the environmental pressure (duh!) and the greater killing off of individuals allowing the "solution" genes to show their mettle and become dominant in the population. Seems like epigenetics probably played a role in speeding up the whole process.

That is why I always look into the mechanisms on a molecular level. In my previous post I explained one of the possible mechanisms. There is more and more evidence that epigenetics plays a big role in evolution.

Epigenetics has yet to establish the hard connection between adaptation and evolution of new species. By “hard connection” I mean the specific molecular interactions. Here is the problem. Epigenetics operates only on an existing genome. Epigenetically driven changes can be passed on the next generations but they can easily be lost as well. Epigenetics won’t change your DNA sequence. It can promote expression and suppression of various genes, but it won’t make a beak in place of your mouth. Evolution of species, on the other hand needs GENETIC modifications, which means your DNA sequence has to change. There are many studies that show the soft connections between the two, but since they are soft, alternative explanations could be offered.
There are a few plausible theories that attempt to find those hard connections. They are highly technical and difficult to understand for lay people. Since I have only a limited knowledge of molecular genetics I can’t understand those articles entirely. They look plausible to me, but some conclusions are too subtle for me to fully appreciate them. Try this article:

yonkers, i've apologized elsewhere for confabulating your ideas with moosedrool's, and likewise your personae along with them, but i see i should apologize further. the problem really lies in your choice of monnikers. i know a little bit about moose, somewhat less about donkeys, even less about a.a. milne, which i have perhaps mistakenly presumed to be behind this "eeyonkee" business. maybe it's your real last name, i dunno. certainly doesn't sound polish. i'm guessing, maybe, choctaw? to add to the confusion, moosedrool now seems to be telling us he's italian.

at the risk of drifting this important discussion, wiki offers the following quote from the author of winnie the pooh:

The Old Testament is responsible for more atheism, agnosticism, disbelief—call it what you will—than any book ever written; it has emptied more churches than all the counter-attractions of cinema, motor bicycle and golf course.[

why, ed, dabbling in evolutionary psychology. there's a couple of profs at UCSB, married to each other, no less, who purport to champion this insightful approach to our caveman swiss army knife, the human mind. personally, i think that sex itself is one of the greatest arguments for the existence of god. a tantric guru i know calls it "the gift of the creator".

reading broadly = dabbling ?
really Tony, by now you've got to realize I try to read a lot... even though I'm just a simple high energy physicist...
...maybe if I had concentrated more narrowly I would have made a bigger contribution to my chosen field.

the evolutionary psychologists have come up with a great explanation for the battle of the sexes. men and women have differing interests, due to the very nature of gender, for forwarding their personal genes into spacetime. because men can potentially have an almost unlimited number of offspring, they tend to be promiscuous. women, on the other hand, produce one sex cell per month. if they become impregnated, it'll take nine months to produce a child, followed by weaning. most women don't want to bang 'em out once a year, in spite of the papal imperative. so more is not better for a woman. they tend to be choosy. their best strategy for long-term gene forwarding is to find a quality partner who will shelter and provide so's the progeny can be successful.

...is to find a partner who will shelter and provide so's the progeny can be successful.

Well, sure that's half of the story, but from a biological perspective, once so settled, the female reproductive track is designed to then promiscuously and opportunistically seek out a higher quality sperm when the occasion arises. Quite extra-biblical.

Rate of molecular evolution of the seminal protein gene SEMG2 correlates with levels of female promiscuity

Postcopulatory sperm competition is a key aspect of sexual selection and is believed to drive the rapid evolution of both reproductive physiology and reproduction-related genes. It is well-established that mating behavior determines the intensity of sperm competition, with polyandry (i.e., female promiscuity) leading to fiercer sperm competition than monandry. Studies in mammals, particularly primates, showed that, owing to greater sperm competition, polyandrous taxa generally have physiological traits that make them better adapted for fertilization than monandrous species, including bigger testes, larger seminal vesicles, higher sperm counts, richer mitochondrial loading in sperm and more prominent semen coagulation. Here, we show that the degree of polyandry can also impact the dynamics of molecular evolution. Specifically, we show that the evolution of SEMG2, the gene encoding semenogelin II, a main structural component of semen coagulum, is accelerated in polyandrous primates relative to monandrous primates. Our study showcases the intimate relationship between sexual selection and the molecular evolution of reproductive genes.

i think healyje's citation could bear a bit of analysis. female promiscuity would be off the chart at a hollywood party attended by an important producer, but nonexistent in certain remote mormon communities. of course, interpretation of raw data in the latter venue could easily be influenced by researcher bias.

ed, i'm not sure what you're trying to say. "the way things are" is the definition of truth, from old greeks like parmenides. "retelling"--that's what happens with folk tales. they are never retold in quite the same way, but the process always involves a human mind glomming onto an old idea. i can't remember which thread we discussed it on, but i believe werner was alleging rather vehemently, even for him, that the entire business of a new idea is illusory.

evolutionary psychology isn't my thing, by the way, just something i've read about and found interesting. i met a certain ucsb prof at the last gordon party and somehow we got around to discussing this and he got very interested. it was in a different department at his university and he had never heard about it. ucsb and ucla seem to have a study group devoted to the subject which holds occasional symposia. my request to attend one a couple years ago went into the electronic equivalent of a round file, so i've paid less attention to their schtick. this husband-and-wife team, i'm sure, would be able to provide you data to warm your scientific heart, but i also suspect that many of their ideas found genesis in pillow talk.

TB: i think healyje's citation could bear a bit of analysis. female promiscuity would be off the chart at a hollywood party attended by an important producer, but nonexistent in certain remote mormon communities. of course, interpretation of raw data in the latter venue could easily be influenced by researcher bias.

Assertions of polyandry have nothing to do with sociology or psychology, but rather everything to the evolution of the human male and [particularly] female reproduction system relative to sperm competition.

For one of the better critiques of evolutionary psychology and, in turn, replies to that critique (and the reply to the replies), see Lickliter & Honeycutt's 2003 Psych Bull paper; it is, in many respects, the precursor to the empirical line of work getting attention in the NY Times article on dating and Darwin.

A developmental dynamics perspective allows researchers to abandon popular yet misleading metaphorical references to gene
action (e.g., genes as the storehouse of information or programs for development, genes as the overseers or regulators of development) in favor of characterizing gene activity as a molecular, intracellular event (Johnston & Edwards, 2002). Such an approach emphasizes the unpacking of the mechanics of developmental processes and would include (as first steps) coordinated interdisciplinary efforts to (a) systematically identify individual DNA sequences and their associated products, (b) determine the nongenetic factors involved in constructing and regulating the structure and function of the these products, (c) trace these products and their influence across the various levels of organization that make up the individual organism, and (d) determine how previous developmental outcomes and current experiences influence these processes in ecologically meaningful contexts (see Wagner, Chiu, & Laubichler, 2000, for a similar evo-devo view). The psychological sciences have much to offer in this effort, particularly to explain how previous developmental outcomes and current experiences influence these biological processes in specific contexts.

Viewing genes as reciprocal partners in the developmental processes underlying phenotypic traits and characters requires a shift
in the way the “environment” is typically characterized in discussions of both development and evolution. From a developmental
dynamics framework, the environment cannot be reduced to “supportive conditions” or to an abstract “poser of problems” that must be solved—both common perspectives within contemporary evolutionary psychology. Rather, the specific physical, biological, and social environments within which the individual organism develops are recognized to be inseparable parts of the developmental system. Hence, the organism and its environment are best characterized as codefining (Turvey & Shaw, 1995), and evolution can be seen to result from a dialectical interaction between organisms and environments through ontogeny (Levins & Lewontin, 1985). Attempts to rigidly dichotomize the contributions of the organism and its environment to development or evolution typically lead to the need to invoke other troubling and unnecessary dichotomies, including the nondevelopmental phylogenetic–ontogenetic causal framework reviewed in previous sections and widely embraced by evolutionary psychologists. Whereas such dichotomies have allowed evolutionary psychologists to virtually ignore developmental dynamics in their accounts of human development and behavior (by arguing that they are interested in phylogenetic rather than ontogenetic questions), we argue that evolutionary and developmental frameworks do not provide fundamentally different ways of explaining behavior. Rather, developmental processes are fundamental both to individual development and to evolutionary change.

Instead of asking reductionistic questions about the genetic basis of human development and behavior, a developmental dynamics
approach is interested in what are the contributions of the various components and levels of the organism–environment system and their interactions to phenotypic outcome. This empirically based unpacking of the mechanics of developmental processes requires going beyond the notion of the causal powers of the gene and focusing on the broader relational principles that govern and constrain development and evolution.

high fructose, my last post was primarily in response to the comments on using evolutionary psychology-ish approaches to understanding mating and dating behavior's such as Tony does here:

the evolutionary psychologists have come up with a great explanation for the battle of the sexes. men and women have differing interests, due to the very nature of gender, for forwarding their personal genes into spacetime. because men can potentially have an almost unlimited number of offspring, they tend to be promiscuous. women, on the other hand, produce one sex cell per month. if they become impregnated, it'll take nine months to produce a child, followed by weaning. most women don't want to bang 'em out once a year, in spite of the papal imperative. so more is not better for a woman. they tend to be choosy. their best strategy for long-term gene forwarding is to find a quality partner who will shelter and provide so's the progeny can be successful.

rather than responding directly to these type comments, I hope to add a consideration for critiques of the assumptions implicit in evolutionary psych (jumps taken, in part, because the discipline has the fundamental limit of having no fossil records of human behavior = sophisticated and informed speculation, but speculation nonetheless), more generally, and such statements, more specifically...in particular, the difficulty in disentangling evolutionary pressures and genotype from the dynamic interplay described by Linkliter and colleagues.

OK, I'm being cryptic, primarily because my post was only intended to be background reading for anyone interested -- take it or leave it material -- and I was not intending to respond to any individual comments in the discussion. In connecting anything I post with "dumps from their friends as positive proof of everything they want to believe" you have both overestimated the extent to which I have friends here and the extent to which anyone takes my posts as proof of anything, let alone read my posts. That would take social capital, and I have none, here.

But, you've adequately baited me into a bit more, and I am persuaded by the ideas in the article to which I referred. So, let me take a shot at greater clarity by linking the article to one of your posts. To get there, you'll have to let me quote a bit more of the source and your comments, however.

Relevant (i.e., consistent with the author's argument on limits to evo psych) to the NY Times piece that was posted and in response to what I think you are arguing when you wrote things such as

due to the very nature of gender, for forwarding their personal genes into spacetime.

and

their best strategy for long-term gene forwarding is to find a quality partner who will shelter and provide so's the progeny can be successful.

I think Lickliter & Honeycutt are right on target when stating:

Like Mayr, most evolutionary psychologists argue for the heuristic value of the conceptual decoupling of proximate (ontogenetic)
and evolutionary (phylogenetic) levels of explanation (see Buss, 1999; Crawford, 1998; Daly & Wilson, 1978; Gaulin &
McBurney, 2002). Furthermore, most assume that evolutionary factors are somehow ontologically prior to and more fundamental
than proximate factors in directing phenotypic outcomes. This viewpoint is evident in nearly all current evolutionary accounts of
human behavior and development (but see Bjorklund & Pellegrini, 2002, for a well-developed exception). Lickliter and Berry (1990) termed this dichotomous conceptual framework the phylogeny fallacy. The phylogeny fallacy is based on the assumptions (a) that phylogeny and ontogeny are alternative processes by which information is made available to the developing individual and (b) that specification for an organism’s phenotype can exist independently and in advance of its real-time developmental processes (see also Ingold, 2001; Oyama, 1985). This framework is based (often implicitly) on a strong form of genetic predeterminism and ignores or downplays the fundamental role of developmental processes in the realization of all phenotypic characters or traits.

Ed, can correct me if wrong, but it seems to me that his question of "how do you know if that seemingly reasonable scenario isn't just a retelling of the ways things are, Tony?" is a concise way of asking you to consider the same fallacy that Linkliter is calling to your attention. To me your comments read as if you are making an assumption of selective pressure primacy in your explanation of human mating behavior. To do so, is problematic.

edit: in re-reading my post, I realized that to correctly use the "let alone" phrase, I should have written: "the extent to which anyone reads my posts, let alone takes my posts as proof of anything."

Ed, can correct me if wrong, ...
you answer is better than my question, but yes, while it seems easy to make up some hypothesis regarding the origins of behavior it is more difficult to actually pin it on some bit of the genetic material.

Relative to morphological traits, we know little about how genetics influence the evolution of complex behavioural differences in nature. It is unclear how the environment influences natural variation in heritable behaviour, and whether complex behavioural differences evolve through few genetic changes, each affecting many aspects of behaviour, or through the accumulation of several genetic changes that, when combined, give rise to behavioural complexity. Here we show that in nature, oldfield mice (Peromyscus polionotus) build complex burrows with long entrance and escape tunnels, and that burrow length is consistent across populations, although burrow depth varies with soil composition. This burrow architecture is in contrast with the small, simple burrows of its sister species, deer mice (P. maniculatus). When investigated under laboratory conditions, both species recapitulate their natural burrowing behaviour. Genetic crosses between the two species reveal that the derived burrows of oldfield mice are dominant and evolved through the addition of multiple genetic changes. In burrows built by first-generation backcross mice, entrance-tunnel length and the presence of an escape tunnel can be uncoupled, suggesting that these traits are modular. Quantitative trait locus analysis also indicates that tunnel length segregates as a complex trait, affected by at least three independent genetic regions, whereas the presence of an escape tunnel is associated with only a single locus. Together, these results suggest that complex behaviours—in this case, a classic ‘extended phenotype’—can evolve through multiple genetic changes each affecting distinct behaviour modules.

Assertions of polyandry have nothing to do with sociology or psychology, but rather everything to the evolution of the human male and [particularly] female reproduction system relative to sperm competition.

I think you are confusing terms here. Perhaps in an attempt to be politically correct and gender sensitive you are using the term polyandry instead of female promiscuity? Or perhaps biology uses the terms differently than anthropologists do? Either way it illustrates some of the complexities of sociobiological theory and the effect of socio-cultural decisions on human gene selection and evolution.

Polyandry as used by anthropologists is a type of marriage - multiple husbands, the mirror opposite of polygyny - multiple wives. Like all forms of marriage it can be co-related with subsistence type and mutual obligations - a long ways from a Hollywood party. Some 70% of the world's societies and probably an even larger percentage of males prefer polygyny. Polyandry by contrast is favored by less than 1% of societies and who knows how many women if they were to think about it and speak frankly?

Polyandry is primarily associated with marginal environments and the need to limit population. Traditionally it has been practiced by Eskimos, very high altitude mountain people, a few desert and island people, and some military societies where male mortality is high. The most widely practiced form is the marriage of 2 or 3 brothers to one wife. Three brothers sharing a wife will produce 1/3 as many children as would occur if each had his own. If practiced generation after generation, it causes the quality of the farm land to be increased through concentrated male labor and the number of mouths to fee to remain the same.

Fraternal polyandry in particular will limit the variety of male genes passed on, especially in a society that also has a large number of both male and female monastics. Since it is most widely practiced in areas of Tibetan cultural influence, it may even have been a factor in their rapid adaptation to extreme cold and altitude.

Polygyny will of course foster the genetic predominance of some men over others, and cousin marriage (1/3 of the world's recorded societies prefer to marry cousins) will have another effect. Brother sister matings definitely concentrate genes as the Inca and Hawaiian royalty as well as the Pharoahs and their successors the Ptolemys, demonstrated. Never underestimate human ability to manipulate nature under the guise of something else which is defined by culture.

I gotta say, I love the animal studies. Both that last post by Ed and the last two or so by HFCS are the types of discoveries, grounded in the natural world, that I've always found so interesting about this subject. Dawkins, a zoologist, gives dozens of cool examples of animal behaviour in his various books. As HFCS noted, he is a big proponent that the organism is just a short-term host for genes, whose digital information can last 100s of millions of years.

On the other hand, I'm finding those epigenetic papers a little technical and hard to wrap my head around. If that was my introduction to this subject, I don't think that I would have the passion for it that I do. Having sad that, I'm determined to slog my way through this.

I think some of the more interesting new stuff on bidirectional gene-environment relations is the work on mind body interventions for health problems. There is a ton of randomized trial evidence now for a variety of interventions (and a variety of health problems): see, for example: http://www.jabfm.org/content/16/2/131.full

from the abstract:

there is considerable evidence of efficacy for several mind-body therapies in the treatment of coronary artery disease (eg, cardiac rehabilitation), headaches, insomnia, incontinence, chronic low back pain, disease and treatment-related symptoms of cancer, and improving postsurgical outcomes.

And, relevant to this discussion, many now believe that one important mechanism are the positive consequences of meditation, prayer, etc. on gene expression.

Because Psych Bull is the top review journal in psychology, it is written for a generalist audience. Another reason I really like it is because the author generously cites Gilbert Gottlieb's theoretical work (IMO, Gottlieb is responsible for ending the nature/nuture debate among psychologists, by introducing epigenetic principles to the field.).

abstract:

Currently, behavioral development is thought to result from the interplay among genetic inheritance, congenital
characteristics, cultural contexts, and parental practices as they directly impact the individual. Evolutionary ecology points to another contributor, epigenetic inheritance, the transmission to offspring of parental phenotypic responses to environmental challenges—even when the young do not experience the challenges themselves. Genetic inheritance is not altered, gene expression is. Organismic pathways for such transmission
exist. Maternal stress during the latter half of a daughter’s gestation may affect not only the daughter’s but also grand-offspring’s physical growth. The author argues that temperamental variation may be influenced in the same way. Implications for theory and research design are presented along with testable predictions.

So far, my take is that epigenetics is not likely to have played a significant role in the long-term evolution of hominids (or anything else). Lamarck really was wrong and Darwin was right. Epigenetics is a sideshow.

I'm finding those epigenetic papers a little technical and hard to wrap my head around. If that was my introduction to this subject, I don't think that I would have the passion for it that I do.

Agree, no doubt today's wealth of animal stories (studies) esp in terms of biology, evolution, ecology, synergy, anatomy and physiology are fascinating. On a personal note, certainly they contributed (over very many years now) to my own private modeling for how life works and for how the world works.

Regarding epigenetics, I get what you're saying. It is technical. Very. I took graduate level courses in biochemistry and molecular biology (core disciplines concerning epigenetics) and got As in them on a stiff curve. That was 25 years ago. But if I took these same courses today in the same institution and on the same curve without prep, I'd get solid F's. That to me illustrates how technical these fields are. And how advanced the play is. (Which ain't very appreciated by many, it seems.) Certainly 'Use it or lose it'applies. It sucks that this is so. So it's clear to me I can't get too involved in "epigenetics" or other leading edge efforts, let alone the controversies, let alone the subtle ones. I’m just not qualified given today's state of the art. Besides, other interests are vying for attention too, and regards posting here, who would be the audience? :)

Gotta say though, it is nice to have that basic edu (and those many years of serious study) behind me that allows me to question, to make some sense of the arguments going on today, and to check the social media bs once in awhile. As of course you know, there's a great shocking amount of it out there - esp in the mixed company known as the American public.

I agree about the passion part. I'm glad I experienced Dawkins (also the Great Sagan) when I did. It was nice to experience SG, TEP, TBW (and the Great's works) in the same years I worked in bioengineering and life sciences. I'll always be grateful for the way these men via their books and their art of explaining helped pulled together my own life experiences in science and engineering and nature into a coherent framework that has served as support for my own "practice" in the art of living. (Sure beats the stuffing out of the old bronze-aged one, don't it?)

By the way, regarding knowledge and expertise, oh what I'd give to have your 12 years or so experience in software engineering. :) I just think it would be one more great knowledge system to have in my brain right now with everything going on in today's world. Though an EE long ago, I'm just blown away - pretty much every day now - by the evolution of today's software systems. Astonishes me every time I think about it - how far it's come.

.....

Another interesting topic of evolution I think concerns our motivation systems (or interest systems) as we age. Many are inclined to think our innate interest or motivation declines with age more or less because of an accumulating buildup of "been there, done that." I mean, how many times do you want to hike the same mountain. 10x. 100x. It's only natural for interest to wane afer so many "rinse and repeat" cycles. "Law of Diminishing Returns." In part, this is probably true.

However I suspect there might be something more to it.

In evolutionary context. Mother Nature is smart, never ceasing to impress. I suspect there's a good chance our waning interest in things (or waning motivation to do) as we age is wired in or programmed (not unlike graying or thinning hair or wrinkling) to evince the balance, the very balance, we see in the population, the social group, the species, across individuals. Part of evolutionary strategy: if you're past reproductive age, you don't warrant upkeep. In the end this leads to the evolutionary robustness evolutionists talk about and also the majesties of Mother Nature that impress us all everywhere.

It's a harsh concept, otherwise, harsh fact of life. Can be. Especially for those of us participating, that is, for those of us getting older every day, lol. But then again it's all utterly fascinating as well. The consolation prize, I guess.

Part of evolutionary strategy: if you're past reproductive age, you don't warrant upkeep.

It might be said more like this:

Once you are past an age where you make a difference to the reproductive prospects of your offspring then there is no selection for traits which would extend your life span.

There is good evidence, I believe, that at least in hunter/gatherer settings grandmothers contribute to nutritional support for their grandchildren, and maybe grandfathers do also, but there was speculation that this could be part of why women live longer than men. They contribute more in old age to the likelihood their genes will prosper.

Another speculation, a harsh one: Elders are not so indispensible - as extended phenotypes - to the community (leading to stability and fitness) as they once were. Relatively speaking. Because now we - oops, I mean the gene pool, has books, let alone computers and internet clouds, to store (the stories of) our past. (re: Memory as an extended phenotype conferring fitness.)

.....

For fun, let me revise (not post in such egregious shorthand):

Part of evolutionary strategy: insofar as you pass reproductive age, your genes and their expression (and by extension, you) in the face of entropy aren't so necessary to "the reproductive prospects of your offspring" and so thus get less upkeep. :)

Actually, all this material leads me to think I should re-read basic evolutionary theory along with Dawkins books now that I'm in my 50s, not 30s. More than a little rusty.

Eeyonkee, I don’t agree that epigenetics is insignificant in the long term evolution of humans. Even though epigenetic inheritance is short lived it can help survive a positive mutation. From the article that Cawpoke posted:

the plasticity of the phenotype has again become recognized as a neglected—and probably key— element in the evolution of species (e.g., West-Eberhard, 2003). As Jablonca and Lamb (1995) pointed out, if selection— differential reproductive success— could occur only after the appearance of a novel mutation, as the process is traditionally envisioned, there is a high probability that the “hopeful monster” would be an isolate and therefore unlikely to reproduce. However, if there were existing genetic variation within a population that conferred different potentials to react to novel environmental conditions, there would be a pool of individuals varying in responsiveness—a condition favorable for selection to act on those best prepared to meet the exigencies of the situation.

Epigenetic effects can also increase the rate of mutation by for example exposing a gene to mutagens.
The complexity of expressing a single gene is enormous. Epigenetics sits right in the middle of it. It is hard to imagine it wouldn't effect genetic mutations.

The prevalence of cancer in people beyond their active reproduction age is a good example of Mother Nature not caring about them (us). It seems like only yesterday that me and Mother Nature were tight. Now, I'm an afterthought.

BTW, I meant afterthought. So then I got to thinking, I wonder how many children Ghengis Khan had after the age of, say, 55? I'm guessing, a lot (I'll look up whether he lived that long later). Hopefully I can do something with this factoid if it turns out to be what I think. I know. I'll try an offwidth harder than any I've tried to date (oh wait, been down that route already). Hmmm, that leaves either:
1)impregnating as many women as I can as fast as I can, or
2) something else, something I'm missing...

Another study that is indirectly relevant to the OP question on altruism was published recently in Psych Science, the field's top empirical journal. It doesn't speak directly to questions of the evolution of altruism, but I think some will find it interesting nonetheless because it deals with altruism following an extraordinary event: huge earthquake in China.

the paper is still "in press" but I will update once published, if there is interest.

for those who don't like to click, a big part of the story is:

Altruism is considered a hallmark of the human species’ success, and it’s a well-documented developmental milestone. Kids start off highly selfish and remain that way through preschool, but at about age six they start to become a bit more generous. This pattern, however, has only been studied in relatively affluent kids living in relatively peaceful circumstances. It’s entirely unknown if children would continue to act altruistically in the face of adversity. Will the precocious altruism of childhood survive severe tribulation, or will kids revert back to their earlier self-centeredness? The Sichuan earthquake provided a natural “stress test” to examine the strength of youthful generosity.

Before the earthquake hit, the scientists had given 6- and 9-year-old a version of what’s called the Dictator Game—considered the gold standard for measuring altruism in the lab. Working individually with a researcher, each child is allowed to select stickers to keep. But then afterward, they are asked if they would like to give some of their own stickers to an anonymous classmate who is not playing the game—and therefore has no stickers. The children make their donations in a sealed envelope, so they believe that nobody knows how much, if anything, they are giving away.

But the scientists do know, and this group of kids fit the normal pattern. That is, 6- and 9-year-olds were not significantly different in their altruistic giving in the time before the earthquake. Then, one month after the earthquake, the scientists gave the same test to another, similar group of 6- and 9-year-olds. (They couldn’t follow up with the same children, because they could not locate many of them.) They wanted to see if the normal development of altruism was affected by the disaster experience, in either age group.

And it was, in an interesting way. The 9-year-olds actually gave much more—they were more generous—after the earthquake than before. The experience appeared to solidify and indeed enhance their altruism. But the younger kids gave significantly less than before the quake. The immediate effect of the disaster was to make the 6-year-olds more selfish. Put another way, their new-found altruism did not survive the earthquake.
...
Three years after the earthquake, the kids’ altruistic giving returned to pre-quake levels, suggesting that the earlier changes were an acute response to the immediate aftermath of the disaster. In other words, the younger children opted for self-preservation in a crisis, suggesting that their emerging generosity is still fragile—but this reaction was not long-lasting. The altruism of the older children was apparently robust enough to withstand the challenge of adversity. Importantly, empathy for other victims was the pathway to generous action.

So then I got to thinking, I wonder how many children Ghengis Khan had after the age of, say, 55?

Yeah, there is that idea that he had a lot of descendants. I was pretty sure that a couple of my Polish work colleagues had some of his genes but wondered where the scientists got hold of the Ghengis Khan DNA. Apparently the evidence is less direct but still compelling.

In the pleistocene, cheaters were banished from the group. Alone, facing the wild, this often meant a pretty quick death. Sometimes the cheater's offspring were banished too.

Harsh, yes, but it was an effective gene-trait honing mechanism - selecting against lying, for instance, and selecting for truthfulness.

In comparison, in this user-friendly, incl cheater-friendly, liar-friendly, modern environment (and wide-open civilization) that we've created for ourselves, there are no serious checks relatively speaking on what evolutionary game theory calls defectors (aka, cheaters, liars, deceivers).

In short, the cheating genes of cheaters are permitted (by our civilized nature) to multiply unchecked.

Is this a concern?

.....

Is this yet another example where it seems... We are damned if we do and damned if we don't?

And if so, how do we work this idea or principle into a narrative, esp an inspiring, empowering narrative - for our playbook of living in the modern age?

Or, is there just no escape: You can put something of a civilizing cover over it for awhile (cf: lipstick on a pig) but below, underneath, the "born to lose" entropy runs strong as ever.

.....

Life strategy: Don't concern yourself with the next millenium. Don't concern yourself with the next continent over. It's all just way too complicated, unpredictable, and uncontrollable. So just enjoy the power of now. :)

it's weird to read this thread, in particular given the time scale of evolution which is very long, not something done in a generation.

For instance, the thought that the chimpanzees' and humans' common ancestor dates back roughly 10 million years, representing perhaps 100,000 generations of which we commonly experience 3 or maybe 4... and that our current social situation, large populations living in large groups, has happened only very recently, perhaps in the last 10,000 years (of order 1000 generations?) would seem to put in context the action of an individual in a group, that is, evolution takes place over long time periods.

How you reconcile that with individual behavior and come up with some "reasonable story" of the effects of evolution is beyond me. How to discern the fitness landscape, separate from our own cultural dispositions, is truly a difficult task.

Part of the disconnect - that's always been some of my interest - is that most people, even probably most self-defined evolutionists (believers or supporters of evolution) don't see (1) evolution as mechanistic and causal deterministic through and through and (2) impulses or inclinations (like altruism, or competitivity or tendency to cheat) as evolutionary products evolved over a long evolutionary history.

What does being an evolutionist mean?

Imo, being a full-on evolutionist means (a) understanding that evolution is fully mechanistic, (b) understanding that all mental faculties and tendencies (and not just sexual orientation or sexual drive, ie., lust), and not just spleens and hearts and eye and skin color, are evolutionary output.

Unfortunately, I don't see a voting majority in America coming around to this full-on standing, or stance in belief, for a long long time if ever.

But on a positive note I do see a lot more young people coming around to basic evolutionary theory - even if they haven't worked out most of its implications for a brand new view of life and the world.

.....

re: Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

I could've mentioned this book, too, as helping to pull together my basic thinking in an evolutionary naturalistic framework.

From wiki...

"Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is a thrilling saga that starts with the origin of the Earth. It shows with humor and drama that many of our key traits — self-awareness, technology, family ties, submission to authority, hatred for those a little different from ourselves, reason, and ethics — are rooted in the deep past, and illuminated by our kinship with other animals.

"Sagan and Druyan conduct a breathtaking journey through space and time, zeroing in on critical turning points in evolutionary history, and tracing the origins of sex, altruism, violence, rape, and dominance. Their book culminates in a stunningly original examination of the connection between primate and human traits. Astonishing in scope, brilliant in its insights, and an absolutely compelling read, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is a triumph of popular science."

SoFA certainly contributed to my own tectonic shift in thinking in my 20s and 30s, my later formative years.

Ed's reference from Wiki on binomials and African polygyny is interesting to me because of the different vocabulary used to describe a familiar subject. What strikes me most about it however, is that it is descriptive but not explanatory.

Demographic theory suggests that polygyny may occur because of a surplus of women that results from a high incidence of male warfare. However, polygyny occurs in many situations of relatively balanced gender ratios or even, as in the case of the Yanomamo, where males outnumber females. Accordingly, some men accumulate two or more wives only at the expense of others who never marry, or, much more usually, marry at a later age than women do. As such, the society becomes divided between young bachelors, who may remain single into their thirties and older polygynists. This arrangement may occur informally or may become a marked feature of the social structure. For example, in some South African societies, such as the Zulu, all young men in their twenties were organized into military “age regiments” and were not allowed to marry until their term of service ended. As we have already suggested, differences in marital age are also created by bride wealth requirements.

The social division between polygynists and bachelors points to another prevalent theory of polygyny, which is based on social stratification. In societies where men are not distinguished by differences in access to productive resources, such as land and capital, status distinctions are mainly attained and expressed through direct control over people. This goal is most obviously acheived through incorporating many women into one’s domestic group and expanding it by fathering a large number of children. A stratificational theory of polygyny also accounts for its greater incidence in comparison to polyandry, since men tend to occupy higher statuses than women in the majority of societies.

From a strictly biological interpretation, I believe one would argue that dominant men who also happen to be lucky and survive warfare early in life, seek to maximize their genes through polygyny, status being only secondary?

Then again, it seems from the woman's point of view that while the smart old boy's club invented these institutions, subsequent generations of men got so entangled in maintaining status, the original point was lost on all of the participants.

And couldn't this be said for any human institution including religion?

OK, here is a silly thing bugging me about the algae news release. I find it strange that in the science daily press release for the "cheating" algae the authors use a comparison to group behaviors like schools of fish. This is a poor analogy, IMO, because unlike the authors suggest in the release, it is not necessary that all algae in the group release the toxin (such as they say is required of schools of fish...side question: is it true that there are no individual fish who benefit from the school by swimming close enough, without fully participating in the school?). For these algae to be successful, as a group, it is only necessary that there is a critical mass of participants. Indeed, isn't the critical mass notion precisely why they observe "free riders?" My opinion on this sales strategy is not critiquing the study, per se; I'm just thrown (and being nitpicky) by the authors' interpretations of why they think the study is important. (Another side note: I am totally in favor of scientists publicizing their work. And, to do so well, you have to have a good story to sell the consumer. In this case, I would think a better story would have been to focus on the fact that in many group behaviors it is critical mass that is important, not 100% buy in.)

Bringing back one Neanderthal? What are you going to do, make a pet out of the poor thing?

They survived several ice ages, kept handicapped people alive and buried their children with flowers, so we know they were intelligent and sensitive. No doubt one neanderthal would feel lonely and probably have an inferiority complex because it was different than others and may or may not have the capacity to communicate with language. While keeping Washoe, the last Indian of his tribe at the U of California anthropology museum was interesting for western scientists, he led a very lonely life and he was a homo sapiens.

As far as I know, nobody cloned a human yet. Most people see it either too risky or unethical. It will probably happen in the future, but I don't think a neanderthal will ever be cloned. That would be something similar to Nazis' experiments on humans. Neanderthals are our ancestors but would they be able to adapt to our modern world? What if not? Would you keep him/her in a cage? Scientific curiosity can't justify it.

Oh sure...the Boobs thread gets deleted and now my thread gets a few hits. Come to think of it, wonder what the whole story on the evolution of boobs is. Is their currect, glorious expression primarily the result of sexual or "natural" selection?

"a scientific education is, to a considerable extent, an exercise in taming the authority of one’s intuition."

Ain't that the truth.

.....

Thomas Nagel,

The existence of consciousness seems to imply that the physical description of the universe, in spite of its richness and explanatory power, is only part of the truth,

So it "seems" to him. Perhaps this is why Nagel ended up a philosopher instead of a engineer, a bioengineer. (??)

In my (science and engineering-driven) view (shared by others) the existence of consciousness does NOT imply that the physical description of the universe is only part of the truth.

And in the very next sentence, Nagel adds...

[The existence of consciousness seems to imply that] the natural order is far less austere than it would be if physics and chemistry accounted for everything.

My view is, Nagel needs to expand his view beyond physics and chemistry to biology and bioengineering (in other words, to the sciences of how parts and systems interrelate and function synergistically to yield, in the end, useful functionality - not unlike computers, electronics and the internet.

In short, Nagel needs to think less like the ol' time philosopher and more like a computer-literate, information theory-savvy systems analyst or engineer.

What cowboy, even library scholar or librarian, 100 years ago could've conceived that 10,000 books would in the next century be rendered on a piece of plastic or sand? Or that a Go-Pro could render the day's climb start to finish - in HD no less - on same? All ultimately on a basis of physics, of course; and in between on a basis of parts, systems and synergy.

It's not "just" physics and chemistry. It's physics and chemistry and systems (of parts and wholes and interconnects) evolved over millions of years, extant only because their traits (features if not functions) confer existability.

I know I've suspected it a long time now. And, btw, strangely, an image that always seems to come to mind when I think about this subject: seeing a male giraffe giving oral sex to another (a female I presumed) at a zoo some 20 years ago.

I'd bet for every one we know a little something about, there are 50 others we know nothing about. We are sacks of biochemistry, not just molecular biology, evolved into stable structures over billions of years. So says evolutionary biology!

.....

eeyonkee, I've always been more into legs, ass and hips than boobs. I consider it a strength. :)

Nice find, HFCS. I don't know who I like best, Steven Pinker or Richard Dawkins. They are both such great writers and thinkers. I've been reading three of Pinker's books over the last couple of months. The other two being "The Blank Slate" and "How the Mind Works". Just started reading two of Dawkin's books again, "River out of Eden" and "The Blind Watchmaker". Reading any of these books makes you feel smart.

There seems to be a robust (but somewhat hushed) debate over just how long (5 generations or 50 or 500) it will take to "dumb down" to the proverbial dodo bird equivalent or eyeless salamander now that we've made our environment from sea o shining sea a relatively soft place to fall - and, of course, to reproduce - thanks to medicine, social welfare, modern law and democracies, etc..

In other words, just how long will it take the forces of entropy to dull the gene pool - first, enough to notice, and later, enough to cause problems - in the absence of Nature Past's red in tooth and claw honing pressures.

Of course the evolved features likely affected in our case won't be wings (dodo bird or galapagos cormorant) as much as physical prowess (speed, musculature) and brains. Eyes, too.

Needless to say, I'd be more concerned with this implication of evolutionary theory and genetics (maybe even eugenics) and technology and ethics if I were going to be around 500 years from now. I won't be.

Your recent ice climbing experience, for instance, wasn't "just" physics or "only" physics. To name just one other item, it was also actin and myosin filaments interacting in a metabolic matrix. This needs to be appreciated, too.

Along with other so-called "levels of explanation" or "levels of operation."

He is brilliant man and a fabulous writer, but I would urge those reading him to apply some skepticism concerning his framing and extensions of the science. For public intellectuals, in general, there is a temptation to exaggerate and oversimplify. And, while Pinker is rightly adored for his contributions and his tremendously positive impact on psychological science, he has been accused of this behavior. I think fairly so. He is, no doubt, not the only offender, but I do empathize with those who find frustrating his playing up of controversy and his skipping over some of the nuance of what we don't understand and why we don't understand it. And, I should point out these criticisms are the same type of criticisms being leveled more generally at speculations among evolutionary psychologists and are directly relevant to my (and Ed's) earlier posts in this thread responding to those using evolutionary theory to interpret contemporary observed behaviors (e.g., in mating).

Here, for example, is a review from Science (297.5590, Sept. 27, 2002) of The Blank Slate by Patrick Bateson, Emeritus Professor of Ethology at Cambridge:

The Blank Slate The Modern-Denial of Human Nature

by Steven Pinker

Viking, New York, 2002. 527 pp. $27.95. ISBN 0-670-03151-8.

Is it really the case that, as Steven Pinker claims in The Blank Slate, the biological underpinning of human behavior is denied by most people? Almost daily we are told about genes for maternal behavior, promiscuity, homosexuality, language, and much else. Certainly, the simplistic idea of a straightforward pathway from gene to behavior has had its severe critics (quite properly, in my view): genes code for proteins, not behavior. However, the center of that academic debate is not about whether genes influence behavior but rather how they do so. Pinker is concerned with a very different debate between the natural and the social sciences. He argues that the social sciences are dominated by a belief that all of each individual's characteristics are generated by that person's experience. This looks like a caricature to me, one used to sustain yet another round of the tedious and increasingly irrelevant nature-nurture debate. It is all too easy to pour scorn on stupid arguments or on those people suffering from cultural lag, and Pinker should have resisted this temptation. He undoubtedly writes well and is able to express complex ideas in ways that make them intelligible to lay people. Yet too frequently he overstates his case.

Pinker bases his charge against the naive social scientist on three strands of current scientific inquiry: cognitive psychology, behavior genetics, and evolutionary psychology. The cognitive psychologists have uncovered rules that underlie and generate highly complex behavior. No quarrel with that. But to argue that the rules are, therefore, the basis of "real" human nature is to miss a crucial point. Chess has clear rules, which can be explained to a child. Yet, the interest and the richness of the game lie in what can be generated by those rules.

Behavioral genetics has established beyond all reasonable doubt that many individual differences in behavior can be attributed to genetic differences. However, the notion that the variability in behavior can be partitioned into genetic and environmental components is utterly misleading. Doing so ignores the rich and crucial interplay between the developing individual and his or her social and physical world. The estimates of heritability, with which Pinker seems completely comfortable, depend on the population of individuals and the range of environments sampled. Worse, the effects of a particular set of genes depend critically on the environment in which they are expressed, while the effects of a particular sort of environment depend on the individual's genes. Finally, heritability estimates say nothing about the ways in which genes and environment contribute to the biological and psychological processes of development. Walking on two legs is a fundamental property of being human, and it is one of the more obvious biological differences between humans and other great apes such as chimpanzees or gorillas. Although it depends heavily on genes, it has a heritability of zero because human variability in this respect depends on the vagaries of the environment. Pinker appears to miss the irony that the dependence of high heritibilities on human diversity conflicts with conclusions from the other modern subject he draws on for his attack on the social scientists--the evidence for human universals derived from the work by evolutionary psychologists.

Like many biologists, I regard proposals about the evolution and current utility of behavior as helpful in making sense of behavior. But it does not follow that all examples of present-day behaviors that clearly benefit the individual in the modern world are products of evolution. The combination of oral linguistic ability and manual dexterity, both of which are doubtless derived from past evolutionary pressures, generated written language in several parts of the world in the last 6000 years. IT is not at all likely that the different forms of written language are adaptive in the sense of having been shaped by Darwinian evolution. Moreover, proposals about past evolutionary pressures or current utility must leave open the question of how the behavior develops. Whether or not an individual's development involves some "instruction" from a normally stable feature of the environment, or whether it would be changed by altering the prevailing social and physical environment, cannot be deduced from even the most plausible evolutionary or functional argument.

Part of the problem is that Pinker is so vague in his use of the term instinct, on which much of his conception of human nature depends. Apart from its colloquial uses, the term instinct has at least nine scientific meanings: present at birth (or at a particular stage of development), not learned, developed before it can be used, unchanged once developed, shared by all members of the species (or at least of the same sex and age), organized into a distinct behavioral system (such as foraging), served by a distinct neural module, adapted during evolution, and differences among individuals that are due to their possession of different genes. One use does not necessarily imply another even though people often assume, without evidence, that it does. Behavior that has probably been shaped by Darwinian evolution and appears, ready-formed, without opportunities for learning may be changed in form and the circumstances of expression by subsequent experience. The human smile is a good example. This matters because what Pinker happily calls human nature is in reality individual nature and depends critically on the circumstances of that person's life.

Where do these shortcomings in the argument leave Pinker's thesis about human nature? In poor shape in my view. Saloon-bar assertions do not lead to the balanced discussion that should be generated on a topic as important as this one, and they do a disservice to the really powerful biological arguments that can be deployed. Furthermore, the misplaced combative style delays the honest synthesis Pinker professes he wants so much. I fear that The Blank Slate will become a happy hunting ground for the social scientists already predisposed to be skeptical about evolutionary thinking and that the wretched unnecessary debate over human nature is due for yet another silly round.

two edits: I failed to mention the title of the book review, The Corpse of a Wearisome Debate, and I should have correctly identified the author as Sir Patrick Bateson.

No doubt the fields relating to evolution theory and its implications for humanity have been full of controversy and debate going back decades and decades now.

Indeed, it's Steven Pinker's artful handling of the subjects, the controversies, and the particular PUSH FORWARD he reps for esp through the rolling hills of bullshit (btw, not unlike Dawkins') that explains his popularity and following.

The whole shebang is steeped in history, and the latter in controversy. Curious how long you've been following along. My attention to Dawkins, Stevens, and evolutionary theory and its implications vis a vis culture goes back 30 years now. Even the recent history, something like a soap opera, is full of story, drama.

No doubt the fields relating to evolution theory and its implications for humanity have been full of controversy and debate going back decades and decades now.

Indeed, it's Steven Pinker's artful handling of the subjects, the controversies, and the particular PUSH FORWARD he reps for esp through the rolling hills of bullshit (btw, not unlike Dawkins') explains his following.

I agree, you are missing the point of my post and the book review. The title of the book review (although stated more harshly than I would have) nearly says it all. No reasonable person denies that there used to be a debate. The critique of Pinker's public intellectual work centers around the extent to which there still is a debate among scholars, and the extent to which we can (or cannot, to be more precise) make inferences about the evolution of innate behavior from sources such as behavioral genetic studies of heritability (i.e., proportion of variance explained by genes for observed behaviors using, for example, twin and adoption studies) and the extent to which a behavior is functionally adaptive to contemporary environmental constraints and opportunities.

High Fructose Corn Spirit wrote:

The whole shebang is steeped in history, and the latter in controversy. Curious how long you've been following along. My attention to Dawkins, Stevens, and evolutionary theory and its implications vis a vis culture goes back 30 years now. Even the recent history, something like a soap opera, is full of story.

Props for "following along" much longer than I have. 30 years ago, I was worried about: (a) passing 9th grade earth science by the skin of my teeth, (b) pimples, (c) girls, and (d) trying to play guitar just like Pete Townsend...albeit rarely in that order.

A perfect example of how the public can get evolutionary theory and even memes wrong...

is illustrated in yesterday's interview of Alex Honnold by Joe Rogan when Joe starts talking about fear of spiders, instincts, etc. and expresses his thoughts on it. He's close but off, no cigar. Meanwhile, Alex struck me as being fully in the know on both genes and memes.

As your link indicates: Patrick Bateson is, like his good friend Richard Dawkins, an atheist. Did you post this because you see it as relevant to his critique of Pinker?

Regardless, it is interesting that via the link you have connected the thread back to Dawkins. Despite having tremendous respect for Dawkins and his work and agreeing with 95% of the propositions that Dawkins has laid out in his work (and despite both men reporting that they are friends), Bateson remains an ardent critic of the remaining 5% related to the role of environment in evolution. And, here, I would agree that there remains thoughtful, on-going disagreement (unlike the antiquated nature-nurture debate that Bateson accuses Pinker of relying on to provoke readers).

While given your expertise and long time studying these matters, HFCS, you must be intimately familiar with the disagreements between Dawkins and Bateson much more than am I, others here may be interested in a summary of the disagreement (from Bateson's point of view) in the book celebrating Dawkins and the 30th anniversary of The Selfish Gene: Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think

The conclusion of Bateson’s chapter provides a summary of his critique (pp. 174-175):

"Darwinian evolution operates on characters that have developed within a particular set of conditions. If those conditions are stable for many generations then the evolutionary changes that matter will arise in the way that Richard has so clearly and carefully described. Apparent design is produced, even when it is at the end of the long and complicated process of development. But the environment does not cease to be important for evolution just because it remains constant. Change the environment and the outcome of an individual’s development may be utterly different. Indeed, if an individual does not inherit its parents’ environment along with their genes and other transmittable factors, it may not be well adapted to the conditions in which it now finds itself. But the altered environmental conditions may throw up variation that was previously hidden and from that may spring new lines of evolution. Active choice and active control by the organism together with its own adaptability may all be important additional drivers of evolutionary change. These possibilities do not conflict with the ideas about the evolution of apparent design, which Richard describes so well, but they can explain why sudden changes in direction can and obviously did occur over the long span of biological evolution."

On the topic of critiquing and questioning important details within the paradigm-shifting arguments and ideas of great minds like Pinker and Dawkins, I say "hear, hear!" to Bateson's conclusion in his chapter celebrating and honoring Dawkins in Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think (p.174)

"It is comforting to be praised, and Richard certainly deserves heaps of praise. Even so, constructive criticism should also be seen as flattery and may be more stimulating...Just because I admire the clarity and brilliance of his writing, I think it is appropriate to identify where Richard might have led others astray by the very gifts that have made him justifiably famous."

How to adapt? It will require more individual initiative. We know that it will be vital to have more of the “right” education than less, that you will need to develop skills that are complementary to technology rather than ones that can be easily replaced by it...

I'm not sure which social scientists Pinker had in mind unless it was sociologists since they are the only social science without a biological component. Anthropology and psychology expend as much as half their field on studying the biological, while economics has done a lot of research into consumers and the impact of advertising, aethetics in store displays, and use of space in relation to sales and in conjunction with neurobiologists on exactly what areas of the brain are reward centers and what activates them in regard to sales. I think this was true in 2002 although even more so today. Coincidentally, sociology which was once the most popular social science is now the one with the fewest students.

Sheesh, there's been some good posts since I last contributed (been going through a voluntary reduction in time spent on ST). Cowpoke, you blow me away. Loved that critique of Pinker's, The Blank Slate. Of the three books that I have read of his, the chapter on parenting in this book is the one I remember best, and the one that I thought flew in the face of conventional thinking. His thesis was that, based on evidence from twin studies and the like, 50% of what makes you you is genetic but, of the other 50%, only 0 to 10 percent could be correlated with your family. He speculates that who you hang with (peers) might account for a big part of that remaining 50%.

In light of the findings from epigenetics, I could conceive that big portion of that 50% is epigenetic-related. The evidence for the lack of nearly any parental/family influence strikes me as probably wrong, but only in that personal incredulity way that can often steer you wrong.

I'm still reading Ed's links, including the one by the Wilsons. I've read a lot more of Dawkins, who has no respect for group selection. I've only read onebook by E.O. Wilson, The Social Conquest of the Earth. I must admit of having a "fancy" about group selection. I need to study this more.

Also consider reading what Richard Lewontin has to say. I see he appears in one of cowpoke's references. The only book of his I have read was It Ain't Necessarily So: The Dream of the Human Genome and Other Illusions. It seemed a good antidote to the tendency to invest too much explanatory power in DNA.

The notion that emotions or any other form of psychology being totally seperate from natural selection is flat out false. It is the old Nature vs. Nurture argument, but as things have moved along in my lifetime, Nature has a far larger impact than was thought. I'm just saying that the role of evolution in psychology, sociology, behaviour, etc. is far stronger than was thought 30 years ago.

Evolution isn't really my bag, but I'm lucky to have this guy as my next door neighbor:

My contribution to any topic on evolution is limited to the evidence of it in the rock record. The rock record agrees with Darwinian evolution completely. I'm not aware of anything in the fossil record that conflicts completely with Darwinian evolution except a couple of things that are odd, but not game killers.

The best way to improve a human will probably not be through cloning. Follow the tracks of a company like Monsanto, who is raking in money by selling genetically modified seeds. If I remember my genetics at all, hybrid seeds lose their recessive traits in one or a small few generations, and since Monsanto holds the patents on certain alterations, they bring in the bucks.

Again, if there was not somebody somewhere trying this, I would be surprised.

My guess is that within 100 years, if we survive the many perils we have created for ourselves, human embryos will be big business. You don't have to have much imagination to see the inevitability. There is a strong desire to have high quality children, and if there isn't a local market for this, some military will certainly do it. Remember, the strong survive.

Either that will happen or the opposite will happen. Smart people have fewer children than stupid people!! :) Just go rent the movie Idiocracy

I think Darwinian evolution is winding down for Humans. We will have the technology in our hands to evolve much faster in the future. We can already do crazy things with rodents. I read a really cool PNAS paper on genetically engineered "knockout mice" that had no histamine receptors. It was a drug trial, and evidently this is fairly common.

I can see all sorts of wild possibilities. One thing is sure. Morality will have no real affect on whether this will happen. If it CAN happen, it WILL happen. Technology that provides any sort of real use will be used.

I can imagine a genetic arms race. It is just a matter of when.

Look at a country like North Korea. They are so batshit crazy that they are probably elbows deep in trying to breed super soldiers or whatever.

If we were in the middle of WWII right now, you can bet your ass that we would be doing this just to survive.

Dr. Mohamed Babu of Mysore India noticed that some of the ants on his kitchen floor turned white after drinking milk. Realizing that they were transparent, he got an idea for a set of photos by spreading droplets of sweet colored water on white plastic in the garden. The ants preferred green and yellow then red with blue coming in last of all.

I wonder if the ants noticed that they changed color? If so, one could imagine humans influencing evolution by feeding only some ants the preferred colors.

And of course, only humans have the brain capacity to dream up such useful projects.

the chapter on parenting in this book is the one I remember best, and the one that I thought flew in the face of conventional thinking. His thesis was that, based on evidence from twin studies and the like, 50% of what makes you you is genetic but, of the other 50%, only 0 to 10 percent could be correlated with your family. He speculates that who you hang with (peers) might account for a big part of that remaining 50%.

eeyonkee, this was first proposed by Judith Rich Harris based on the behavioral genetics data, but it has fallen under scrutiny because of the increasing documenting of gene-environment interactions in human development (based on ideas originally proposed by Sandra Scarr, who argued that much of the variation in parenting is functionally equivalent within enriched environments). The classic empirical example is the work of Erik Turkheiver (behavior genetists at UVA), who demonstrated that the heritability of intelligence is moderated by poverty. In affluent families, about 0-20% of the variance in intelligence is due to home environment and other shared environments (and most of the variation is explained by genetics), but in the context of poverty 0-20% of variance in intelligence is explained by genetics and the rest is explained by environments like the home. Why would this be? Most believe it is because in the context of socioeconomic deprivation, parenting really matters (e.g., the value of having a good parent is magnified by facing danger and disadvantage), but in the context of abundant resources most variation in parenting is functionally equivalent.

As an addition to my previous post, it might be interesting, to some of you, to see the data on the moderating effects of SES for the heritability of intelligence. The following figure is taken from Socioeconomic Status Modifies Heritability of IQ in Young Children Turkheimer, Haley, Waldron, D'Onofrio & Gottesman (2003), Psychological Science, Vol. 14, pp. 623-628. Underneath the figure, I explain the meaning of the letters A, C, and E for those not familiar with heritability analyses of behavioral genetic data.

moderating effects of SES for heritability of IQ (low SES is at the far left hand of horizontal axis and high SES at the far right hand of horizontal axis)

Credit: cowpoke

In this figure, A is the portion of IQ explained by genetics, C is the portion of IQ explained by "shared environments" (i.e., environments that twins in the same family share such as their home environment and parenting that is common to the two twins), and E is the portion of variance explained by non-shared environments (this is where environmental experiences that are unique to individuals within families fall, things like experiences with peers; technically, however, it is the error term in the model, which means anything not explained by genetics and shared environment).

In affluent families, about 0-20% of the variance in intelligence is due to home environment and other shared environments (and most of the variation is explained by genetics), but in the context of poverty 0-20% of variance in intelligence is explained by genetics and the rest is explained by environments like the home. Why would this be? Most believe it is because in the context of socioeconomic deprivation, parenting really matters (e.g., the value of having a good parent is magnified by facing danger and disadvantage), but in the context of abundant resources most variation in parenting is functionally equivalent.

Interesting as hell. As a software developer, I see this kind of thing thing all of the time. The "thing" being that if you didn't include a particular variable, in this case relative socioeconomic deprivation, you would miss a big part of the real world that you are trying to model.

This might be a good metaphor for group selection. Perhaps in certain species, say ants, some variable has exceeded a threshold and group selection IS the dominant selection pressure. In most other species, that variable does not reach the threshold required for group selection to succeed. Presumeably, below that threshold. the cheaters overwhelm the slight advantage that group altruism affords. With respect to my original topic number 2, I'd still have to go with selection at the gene level (Dawkins) over selection at the group level (the Wilsons) in humans.

With respect to epigenetics in its broadest sense, I'm beginning to suspect that it might play a big part in distinguishing you from your identical twin. The only other option you have is "the environment" based on the math behind the twin studies. It's not hard for me to see that this could be true and, at the same time, for epigenetics to play only a small role in the evolution of humans.

I've posted this synopsis on the God vs Science thread also since most of our arguments there boil down to the question of consciousness. In any case, a study of Einstein's brain It certainly makes it look to me like Genetics was all important. What we can't answer is whether all of those unusual characteristics would have gone to waste if Einstein had grown up in a deprived background.

The brain of celebrated physicist Albert Einstein has been a subject of much research and speculation. It was removed within seven and a half hours of his death. The brain has attracted attention because of Einstein's reputation for being one of the foremost geniuses of the 20th century, and apparent regularities or irregularities in the brain have been used to support various ideas about correlations in neuroanatomy with general or mathematical intelligence. Scientific studies have suggested that regions involved in speech and language are smaller, while regions involved with numerical and spatial processing are larger. [Einstein's inferior parietal lobe (which is responsible for mathematical thought, visuospatial cognition, and imagery of movement) was 15% larger than average.] Other studies have suggested an increased number of glial cells in Einstein's brain.[1]

Harvey had reported that Einstein had no parietal operculum in either hemisphere.,[8] but this finding has been disputed.[9] Photographs of the brain show an enlarged Sylvian fissure. In 1999, further analysis by a team at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada revealed that his parietal operculum region in the inferior frontal gyrus in the frontal lobe of the brain was vacant. Also absent was part of a bordering region called the lateral sulcus (Sylvian fissure). Researchers at McMaster University speculated that the vacancy may have enabled neurons in this part of his brain to communicate better.

Einstein himself claimed that he thought visually rather than verbally.

A study, "The cerebral cortex of Albert Einstein: a description and preliminary analysis of unpublished photographs",[9] was published on November 16, 2012, in the journal Brain. Dean Falk, an evolutionary anthropologist at Florida State University, led the study - which analysed 14 recently discovered photographs - and described the brain: "Although the overall size and asymmetrical shape of Einstein’s brain were normal, the prefrontal, somatosensory, primary motor, parietal, temporal and occipital cortices were extraordinary."[13]

Preserving the brains of geniuses was not a new phenomenon—another brain to be preserved and discussed in a similar manner was that of the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss almost a hundred years earlier. His brain was studied by Rudolf Wagner who found its weight to be 1,492 grams and the cerebral area equal to 219,588 square millimeters.[14] Also found were highly developed convolutions, which was suggested as the explanation of his genius.

An interesting article in the last issue of Child Development that is relevant to the discussions of epigenetics: Epigenetic Vestiges of Early Developmental Adversity: Childhood Stress Exposure and DNA Methylation in Adolescence (Essex et al., 2013; Volume 84, Pages 58–75)

Abstract: "Fifteen-year-old adolescents (N= 109) in a longitudinal study of child development were recruited to examine differences in DNA methylation in relation to parent reports of adversity during the adolescents’ infancy and preschool periods. Microarray technology applied to 28,000 cytosine–guanine dinucleotide sites within DNA derived from buccal epithelial cells showed differential methylation among adolescents whose parents reported high levels of stress during their children’s early lives. Maternal stressors in infancy and paternal stressors in the preschool years were most strongly predictive of differential methylation, and the patterning of such epige- netic marks varied by children’s gender. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first report of prospective associations between adversities in early childhood and the epigenetic conformation of adolescents’ genomic DNA."

From the discussion section of the paper (pp. 69-70):
"Taken together, these findings offer novel evidence for a biological embedding of early experience, or more specifically, the temporally remote correlates of early adverse experiences on the human epigenome and its regulatory role in the expression of specific genes, including genes that guide neurodevelopment. Both relative increases and decreases in promoter region methylation were detected in the genomes of adolescents whose par-
ents had reported significant adversity in past years. Although DNA methylation is generally associated with a down-regulation in gene expression, the epigenetic control of differential transcription is almost certainly far more complex and involves a broad and diverse array of chromatin modifications (see, e.g., Mehler, 2008). As a consequence, discerning a coherent and functional ‘‘meaning’’ of the reported findings lies beyond the present state of epigenetic science. We note, however, that to our knowledge these data constitute only the second report of altered DNA methylation in buccal epithelial cells associated with environmental exposure, following a recent study that reported DNA methylation marks in such cells from 5-year-old children associated with maternal smoking during the intrauterine period (Breton et al., 2009).

Importantly, our findings may be correctly viewed as an instantiation of ‘‘gene–environment interplay’’ and the capacity for experience and genomic variation—allelic or epigenetic—to conjointly influence salient developmental endpoints (Gilbert & Epel, 2009; Rutter, Moffitt, & Caspi, 2006). One variety of such interplay is the moderation of early experiential effects by single nucleotide polymorphisms within genes affecting key neural circuitry and neurotransmission pathways (Caspi et al., 2002). The most broadly recognized examples of epigenetic regulatory processes are those described within the caregiving behavior of the mother rat and within the dietary influences on coat color in mice. Studies by Meaney, Szyf, and colleagues (Meaney & Szyf, 2005; Weaver, Cervoni, et al., 2004) have shown how phenotypic differences in the reactivity of the HPA system arise from the mother rat’s licking and grooming behavior in her pups’ first several postnatal days. Such behavior changes reactivity phenotypes by demethylating the binding site for transcription factor Egr1 in the enhancer region of the pups’ GR gene. Waterland and Jirtle (2003) supplemented the diets of pregnant, viable yellow Agouti mice with methyl-donors, such as folate, choline, and betaine, and created dramatic differences in offspring coat color. Pups of mothers fed methyl-donor supplements had increased methylation of the Agouti allele that guides yellow fur development, resulting in suppressed gene expression and phenotypic reversion to a brown coat color."

Recently we got a surprise about the evolution of Homo sapiens when a South Carolina African American man's DNA was found to have a common ancestor with other Homo sapiens, much further back than anticipated.

Homo sapiens as a distinct species only goes back 200,000 years and we only left Africa 50-60,000 years ago according to all previous DNA studies. However, this man's DNA showed his most recent common ancestor was 340,000 years ago. It was then discovered that there were 7 others from Cameroon.

All this is interesting because it means that this branch of the family tree departed during the time of Homo erectus or one of his direct descendants that we don't know about yet. Obviously these descendants mixed with generations of Homo sapiens in subsequent years, but some of the old Y-DNA remains.

So far now, we have discovered that Homo erectus evolved into neanderthal in Europe, denosovan in central Asia, floresiensis in Indonesia, Homo sapiens in East Africa and now the ancestor of the small group in Cameroon. The family tree was quite diverse.

This recent finding also establishes that there was a whole lot more cross species mating going on than we had previously imagined. Today about 2-3 % of Europeans have some neanderthal DNA and 6% of some north Asians have denisovan. And now from Africa more indications.

JR,
I have access to the pdf via my university, but for some reason it is not a version that can be saved (and it is a pain to cut and paste because the text is in narrow columns in the pub). I'd bet the first author would gladly email a reprint of the pdf, however. From the author note: Marilyn J. Essex, Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, 6001 Research Park Boulevard, Madison, WI 53719. Electronic mail may be sent to mjessex@wisc.edu

"The late John Maynard Smith took red deer as an example of where things go wrong. While the powerful males are busy rutting, many of the females slope off to have sex with the less macho males of the herd (Maynard Smith labelled them the "**sneaky f*#kers**").

Student Questioner: "I wanted to know if (1) you thought the society we are creating slows (undermines) the process of natural selection and (2) if you think that is a good or bad thing for our species."

Richard Dawkins: "To the extent that people are born who would not have been born under natural wild conditions, to the extent that medical science enables people to grow up and reproduce, to that extent genes are being put into the gene pool which would have been removed by natural selection in a wild state. I think that's pretty much inevitable. I don't think it's a bad thing. I like doctors, I like hospitals. I like the fact that, for children, it's quite difficult to die young nowadays and therefore if you want to reproduce you probably can. There was a time in the 1920s and 1930s when everybody was very worried about the dysgenic effects of modern medicine. I think it's something that we live with, and I am, on balance, happy to live with it. I would not like to live in a world in which children were dying of diseases which could be cured, so I'm not in favor of worrying about the dysgenic effects of modern medicine."

Is there now something of a race between ever increasing dysgenic effects and ever improving technology?

Audience Question: This is on the interplay between technology and evolution. Do you think our adaptability or survivability are at risk from our use of technology? What do you think of technology that may some day entrap us? like by permitting bad genes in increasing numbers of people. How do we reverse that or deal with that? Is there any alternative?

Richard Dawkins: Medical science is allowing bad genes to propagate in the population. Yes it is. But on balance, I don't deplore it. I think it's worth it. In the case of eyesight and eyeglasses, as long as we have the technology to go on making glasses, it will probably be okay. It's true that if that were wiped out then that would be serious. Imagine getting rid of spectacles. Anybody over the age of about 45 would no longer be able to read. They wouldn't be able to play a part in civilized life. So we do indeed depend on technology. But it's getting better. I was talking only yesterday to an eye surgeon who was telling me about the wonderful techniques of using laser surgery to reshape the cornea so you don't need eyeglasses at all. We are getting better at those sorts of things. So technology is at present keeping up with the dysgenic effects of modern medicine.

..

In my view this is going to be one of the gravest problems future generations are going to face.

The thing about evolution and natural selection is that you don't know ahead of time, which genes will be most beneficial in the future. Some dimwit with bad eyesight might have the only gene that allows human survival of some future virus or germ.

Was there not a link earlier in this thread to studies indicating that increased population was accelerating human evolution/human variation? More population survival means more potential for genetic variation.

Which dysgenic effects do you think are real? I have not studied this at all, but a quick search seems to show mostly speculation. I see that Richard Lynn documents that childbirth rates are lower for highly intelligent people as compared to criminals and low intelligent populations.

This may be, and it may have social repercussions, but my question is, what genetic issues does this raise? How is this genetically harmful? Myself, I don't see the problem from a long term genetic aspect. Perhaps you can elaborate your thoughts on this.

Your cartoon points out that many people are becoming fatter as our TVs get skinnier, but you don't think this is a genetic issue do you? In a sense, it is a genetic issue with the TVs, since they are fundamentally changed from the older TVs, but the fat guy is just eating too much.

Are there any multigenerational studies of some animal, or plant population where providing a too easy environment leads to genetic changes that endangers the long term survival of that population?

Hey, I loved Logan's Run. A couple years ago, last time I watched, I googled the brunette, was happy to see she's aged well. If you have the dvd, York gives an excellent commentary of the film, btw.

...

Paul, interspersing that cartoon in the text was probably confusing, sorry. Cartoon was just funny. Regarding dysgenic effects, I used the term because Dawkins used it - so i'm not sure how google-worthy or precise it is or how often it's used by evolutionary scholars in e theory. There might be a better term, or terms, out there to describe the process or phenom. I think it's also used to counterpoint "eugenic." I think it's interesting what is deemed eugenic or dysgenic depends on pov. If it could talk, the ancestor of the eyeless cave salamander might say its progeny suffered "dysgenic effects" when they lost their eyes eking out existence in darkness. However, on the other hand, the progeny might not agree as the eyes in darkness weren't needed; they might counter with the argument, "We're not dysgenic at all, just more streamlined and efficient now!" lol.

Same with dodo bird. Its gene pool got soft in the flight department in the absence of selection pressure for flight (predators). (Same with the extinct solitaire, too, apparently.)

In any case, I liked Dawkins' reply - it was certainly thought-provoking - that the interplay between easy softer environment, natural selection and technology was inevitable, is inevitable, in addition to unpredictable, something we have to live with, on balance a good thing (at least for us), and not really something to worry about on those grounds. A day at a time, or a generation at a time, and do your best and hope for the best. Much like our situation with global warming, I guess.

"I've watched a lot of your videos on line, I've enjoyed every one of them, and I liken some of those debates you get into with those old Gracie in Action videos... For martial arts it's really brilliant stuff to watch cause until the Gracies came along nobody really knew that there was one guy out there that could just sort of manhandle people like that - strangle them and choke them - that there was one martial art that was so superior when it came to grappling situations, you'd almost feel bad for the guy getting strangled but not really. That's how I feel when I watch a lot of your debates."

"Well that's very high praise but I can tell you it's not as satisfying in the debate format as it is on the mat. Because no one ever taps. It's like you're fighting an army of zombies - they've lost but they can't be forced to admit that they've lost." (-Sam Harris)

I don't see any evidence for the idea of Dysgenisis or for the idea that humans have stopped evolving. I do read speculation, assertions and assumptions that humans have stopped evolving and that technology is making us less fit for future survival.

Population growth is making all of this change occur much faster, Hawks says, giving a tribute to Charles Darwin. When Darwin wrote in Origin of the Species about challenges in animal breeding, he always emphasized that herd size "is of the highest importance for success" because large populations have more genetic variation, Hawks says.

The parallel to humans is obvious: The human population has grown from a few million people 10,000 years ago to about 200 million people at A.D. 0, to 600 million people in the year 1700, to more than 6.5 billion today. Prior to these times, the population was so small for so long that positive selection occurred at a glacial pace, Hawks says.

"What's really amazing about humans," Hawks continued, "that is not true with most other species, is that for a long time we were just a little ape species in one corner of Africa, and weren't genetically sampling anything like the potential we have now."

"Five thousand years is such a small sliver of time -- it's 100 to 200 generations ago. That's how long it's been since some of these genes originated, and today they are in 30 or 40 percent of people because they've had such an advantage. It's like 'invasion of the body snatchers.'"

HFCS - The cartoon with the fat guy and the skinny TV was funny. The mouse video was entertaining. However, your statement that,

Still, the plight of dysgenic effects, due to rising of technology and the undermining of natural selection in ever softening climates, is real.

Is an assertion presented as fact, but without any supporting evidence.

It is okay to speculate and have assumptions but lets try to be clear when they are speculation and assumptions.

Is an assertion presented as fact, but without any supporting evidence.

Paul, sure there is some assumption or speculation with these types of posts, but still I'm not sure where the confusion or disagreement, to the extent it exists, is.

When I think about the dodo bird (losing flight capability: dysgenic effect) or eyeless cave salamander (losing visual acuity if not eyesight entirely: dysgenic effect) or sea mammal (losing limb dexterity for mvt on land: dysgenic effect) or inguinal hernia patient and his progeny (losing let's call it abdominal wall integrity; dysgenic effect due to surgeon and repair technology) - and here I'll speculate - countless thousands of other examples large to small, macro to micro, anatomical to physiological, across species' gene pools, in phenotypes, phenotypic effects, etc., I have in mind entropy effects (increasing disorder) in the absence or reduction of selection pressure. This is just basic evolutionary theory. Right?

That said, remember I did point out above that what's "eugenic" or "dysgenic" is in the eye of the beholder. Right?

Regarding what's real or factual: The effect or phenomenon (dysgenic?) of flightless cormorants is real. Right? Or the phenom or effect (dysgenic?) of fearlessness of many Galapagos species - that's factual or real. Right? Given the arrival of Man to these islands a couple centuries back, I think many would opine or judge today that the relative defenselessness of the fauna - the cormorant flightlessness, eg, or blue footed booby defenselessness or fearlessness, the genotypes and phenotypes (structures) leading to these - to be "dysgenic." Curious if you don't agree assuming your interest is the preservation (esp the autonomous carefree preservation) of these critters.

I don't know if you had a chance to catch the Dawkins Shermer sitdown at Cal Tech interview I linked to above. I really haven't said anything different on these last couple pages, or anything more, than what was brought up in there.

There are growing eugenic efforts, eg, eugenic companies, around the world today. Just yesterday morning, in fact, on CBS This Morning, Charlie and Nora interviewed the founder of 23 and Me. In the future, there is little doubt (but sure, we could call it assuming or speculating) these eugenic efforts will increase; and they will play a greater role insofar as needed to offset dysgenic effects. Arguably all the more reason to learn about them today - and their associated processes - the mechanics if you will - across the citizenry so in the future there won't be such a mindless, reflexive, knee jerk reaction to them or their remedies.

Thanks to the link to the Sam Harris piece. Missed that one. Will try to read it later today. I like the analogies or comparisons between the bullshit in martial arts and bullshit in religions. People are wising up. Some of them.

...

re: evolution of belief

I appreciate your tolerance of religion. I too had a sense of tolerance of religion for the most part. That tolerance began to die on 9/11/01. As the succeeding years have pasted and the Christian fundamentalist such as Bachman, Santorum, Perry, Barton, and Cruz began sounding more like the Taliban than Americans I decided the hell with it. Religion does not deserve to continue much less be tolerated. BS has to be called out and refuted.

Entropy. Second Law of Thermo. Evolution. Reality vs. Perception of Reality. Reality vs. Representation of Reality. The Scientific Story. Meaning of Life.

.....

Fort,

Alas, a lot of folks didn't grow up with physics, chemistry and evolutionary history as a basis of biology - particularly long enough to imprint on them - so it's pretty easy to see WHY they don't view the world around them including their own lives in this context.

Internet and social media (Big History to Cosmos 2014, etc.) are changing everything though.

For many it's less to do with facts now, I think, and more to do with attitude.

Not that anyone asked but I'd say the meaning of life, or purpose of life, is to eat, survive, reproduce... and, above these basics, for Man, to actualize, to do, and by all means try to get in some fun along the way. :)

I have acquired an increasing sneaking suspicion that our mellowing, saddening and such with age is every bit as programmed in our makeup - by evolution and genetics - as (a) our reaching puberty and its effects or (b) other temporal hallmarks (graying, menopause, e.g.). Like clockwork. Though we like to think it's imparted by education, experience, wisdom or rational thought. Or due to breakdown, or breakdowns. But I'd bet, in large part, it is effect or output of clockwork laid down over eons by evolution and mediated in real time by genetic metabolism. All part of the Grand Balance (of dynamic equilibria) we can see operating across nature, human nature and general nature. Can't prove it though.

digital technology could have a greater impact than anything that has come before. It will enhance the powers of some individuals and organizations while subverting the powers of others, creating both opportunities and risks that could scarcely have been imagined a generation ago.

"The tremendous change in our world triggered by this media inundation can be summed up in a word: transparency. We can now see further, faster, and more cheaply and easily than ever before — and we can be seen. And you and I can see that everyone can see what we see, in a recursive hall of mirrors of mutual knowledge that both enables and hobbles. The age-old game of hide-and-seek that has shaped all life on the planet has suddenly shifted its playing field, its equipment and its rules. The players who cannot adjust will not last long."

"As optimists, we would like to believe that this period of turmoil will push us toward organizations better aligned with the moral codes of civil society and powerful novel ways to correct deviant organizational behavior. But we cannot rule out a permanent weakening of our intelligence organizations that will reduce their abilities to identify threats."

"The new transparency will lead to a similar proliferation of tools and techniques for information warfare: campaigns to discredit sources, preemptive strikes, stings, and more."

"Time will tell, but it appears that we might be at the cusp of a radical branching of the organizational tree of life."

Did natural selection make the Dutch the tallest people on the planet?

So their heads stay above water in a flood?

For many years, the U.S. population was the tallest in the world. In the 18th century, American men were 5 to 8 centimeters taller than those in the Netherlands. Today, Americans are the fattest, but they lost the race for height to northern Europeans—including Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, and Estonians—sometime in the 20th century.

The study suggests that sexual selection is at work in the Dutch population, Stearns says: Dutch women may prefer taller men because they expect them to have more resources [eg., tools to toys?] to invest in their children.

There's only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch.

I love that line. But seriously, I appreciate you keeping this thread alive HFCS. Turns out, I have changed my thinking on the subject of are humans still evolving - 186 degrees.

The book, The Beak of the Finch, changed my thinking on the subject. Evolution can happen a lot faster than I thought. And the reason it happens fast is the combination of "natural" and "sexual" selection. They seem to combine in this way that provides feedback that ultimately accelerates evolution. The most mysterious part, to me, is how, in an emergent species, the females "know" how to select those males having the new, fitter gene(s).

Having said that, our ability to engineer our progeny in the future will likely overwhelm natural and sexual selection, although this sort of evolution might still apply to some future underclass.

1. Are humans still evolving? I mean significantly. Are we going to continue evolving bigger brains for instance. Since natural selection requires some sort of selection pressure, typically involving either a significant culling or isolation of a population, is this likely in a world of 7 billion where people move (and procreate) freely across the planet?

2. Is group selection, as advocated most notably by the evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson, a viable process for explaining things like altruism or can this be explained entirely by selection at the organism or gene level?

3. What is the likelihood that the emergence of life on a planet will lead to intelligent life given 100s of millions or billions of years of evolution to work with.

1. Yes. As long as there's heritable variation and selection, you'll get evolution. Because the usual forms of natural selection are less applicable (that's arguable!) to humans, it's not clear just what forms of selection are likely to be most important for us currently.

2. I'm not up on the most current research here, I don't think that some of these phenomena _can_ be explained solely by selection at the level of the individual. Also, don't discount the importance of culture, which, I suspect, often leads to a form of group selection.

The study, published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Communications, determined that while human hand proportions have changed little from those of the last common ancestor of chimps and humans, the hands of chimps and orangutans have evolved quite a bit.

I sometimes wonder if we are overall devolving as a species on a large scale (increase in obesity, heart disease etc...) while small subgroups evolve to unimaginable talent and physical prowess (ie Usain Bolt's 100m time.....the result of a terrific genetic gift coupled with a culture of skill and drive and effort......or your typical collegiate swimmer as compared to 1958.)

Some of our larger environments seem to dumb down the genetic pool, while others are selectively improving the progeny of the next generation. Ie. beautiful people marrying beautiful people which leads to beautiful children who will then marry beautiful people who will have good looking kids. Or I now know many couples who were both Olympians who are seeing their kids grow up to be Olympians and date olympians..... In three short generations you seem to have a really high chance of genetic specificity toward a particular sport. Couple that with a culture of a sport in a family and the potential for "selection" seems quite high.

My outlook outlook on human evolution. For a period of time from about 100,00 or 40,000 years ago to about 100 years ago human populations managed to separate and start a process of individual population evolution. Some physical characteristics began to diverge and become distinct. Perhaps other characteristics.

Regardless we are now in a time of homogenization. I now see only two sources of radical change in our species evolution. A massive depopulation event or taking our genetic code into our own hands or a combination of both...

I am highly optimistic about the future of the human race. While we may (likely) go though various depopulation events over eons, the species is robust and incredibly adaptable for survival in almost all environments on land that earth offers.

I grew up with Eskimos for a time and, wow, If one can subsist in that environment.. well it's gonna be hard to get rid of the human race.

I am hopeful that we will evolve into a species with better capability for peaceful sustainable civilization.

Yep YER GUNNA DIE.. we all will..but not likely all at once until we become something different.

The study, published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Communications, determined that while human hand proportions have changed little from those of the last common ancestor of chimps and humans, the hands of chimps and orangutans have evolved quite a bit.

I wonder what it is in the environment that has caused these dramatic changes?

Bolts record in the 100, and 200 doesn't have to do with his genetic breeding. Although his genetics did allow him to reach this Plateau. But it was certainly the environment of the other top runners that pushed him to that extra -.05 record

And earlier I spoke of dysgenic effects. The point made was that whether or not an evolved change is dysgenic (or eugenic) depends on point of view and the the goal or objective.

That is one of the most interesting parts to me... how it is a function of how you look at it.

The dodo we can imagine with no interest in flying any more like its ancestors - after all it's home was paradise - why go (fly) anywhere else? - was of course proud of its newly (d)evolved upper limbs.

No interest until there is...

Is the eyelessness in the eyeless cave salamander net positive (eu-) or net negative (dys-)?

1. Are humans still evolving? I mean significantly. Are we going to continue evolving bigger brains for instance. Since natural selection requires some sort of selection pressure, typically involving either a significant culling or isolation of a population, is this likely in a world of 7 billion where people move (and procreate) freely across the planet?
Of course we are changing, and that is all that evolution means: change.

Many inheritable diseases can be treated now, so the afflicted can have children and pass on the defect. There might be "positive" evolutionary processes going on, but I doubt it. Anyone can have children. It has nothing to do with economic or physical success. Anyone can mate now, and their progeny has an excellent chance of surviving to adulthood.

Perhaps women, when choosing a mate, consciously or unconsciously seek out good genetic qualities in their men. I'm sure that this is going on to some extent, but how important or common it is, I dunno.

2. Is group selection, as advocated most notably by the evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson, a viable process for explaining things like altruism or can this be explained entirely by selection at the organism or gene level?

Humans are very altruistic. This has probably been burned into our genes for millions of years, back to the more primitive primates. Lots of animals cooperate, sometimes while hunting or feeding, and we can see it all around us in our behavior. The only exception is our tribalism, which also seems hereditary. We view other tribes as enemies and have wars, discrimination, and the like.

We all inhabit this small blue planet, but a look at a map will show a large number of nations, or tribes. Each has its own agenda for survival, and this leads to things like war. If we could only get rid of that, the species would have a better chance. Now we have enough nuclear weapons to destroy ourselves. It is a miracle that we haven't had a nuclear war somewhere in the world. Now some of the tribes have the ability to totally destroy their rivals. Destroying themselves in the process. The only reason to launch a nuclear counter strike is simply a sting back. That hangs over us like a sword.

3. What is the likelihood that the emergence of life on a planet will lead to intelligent life given 100s of millions or billions of years of evolution to work with.

This is really a tough one. We know that life began on Earth as soon as it had cooled enough to be habitable by life. We only have a sample of one, but using it, it seems that life is pretty easy to start.

Despite that, life hung around as single celled organisms for billions of years. It took the Cambrian Explosion, only 550 million years or so ago, to bring complex, multicellular life. So complex life took a long time to happen. This could mean that much life elsewhere is simple. They may not have had a Cambrian Explosion on most planets.

So..from our sample of one, simple life seems to happen easily. Complex life is probably much rarer, and intelligent species like ours has taken hundreds of millions of years to arise since the Cambrian Explosion. We have been around for almost 2 million years, but it took us most of that time to move beyond stone tools. Native Americans used stone tools. They had no metallurgy, but the middle east did, and it spread to Europe.

We are seeing an explosion in technology. 10,000 years ago we were using the same stone tools that go back over 3 million years. Prior hominid species were using stone tools.

Anyway, look at today, then stop and consider how quickly things have happened. Homo Sapiens has totally altered nearly every inch of the Earth, and if he were so inclined, could.

I saw something really interesting the other day. Science Channel probably. It runs in the other room while I work.

This company not only does in-vitro fertilization, but they let the embryo grow to a small amount. 32 cells or so.

They take one of the cells from each egg and then run their genomes through a database looking for known genetic diseases.

They then pick the best egg and implant that one in the mother. It is expensive, but you can screen for certain genetic diseases. A woman was using it to make sure that she didn't pass on her breast cancer gene.

This has all sorts of implications, and I would bet that we will see them in the next 20 years. Our evolution will happen in a lab, and there might even be a higher class of human created, much like the film, Gattica.

Boy does that raise a lot of ethical questions. Imagine genetically engineered humans. It will almost certainly happen if we don't blow ourselves up first.

Regarding eugenics 21st century style (cf: eugenics early 20th century German and American styles), it's too powerful to stop.
Ultimately it's power, combined with other powers, will probably save us, I think.

I wish we could all be born again - as these are very exciting times indeed. Unfortunately, like C Hitchens, we of this generation are all going to be told sooner or later it is time to leave the party and are going to be shown the door. :(

"scientists found that short ambush predators such as alligators and foxes are more likely to have vertical pupils, whereas prey species—like gazelles or sheep—are more likely to have horizontal pupils."

"Circular pupils are generally found on animals that chase down their prey, such as cheetahs, or on taller ambush predators like lions and tigers. This suggests that above a certain shoulder height—about 42 cm—the functional advantages of vertical pupils are lost."

back from The Creek and some real-time camp-fire talk... after climbing...

eeyonkee and Moosedrool were discussing the book 40 Years of Evolution: Darwin's Finches on Daphne Major Island (at least I think they were, I was helping with dinner prep). This discussion spilled over and the speculation of what DNA analysis might be useful in understanding the apparently rapid adaptations was floated, I think this was a breakfast/coffee conversation.

Anyway, my paper copy of Science arrives about a week after the issues release, but having the entire issue at hand means I read most of the articles... and interestingly, this article appeared:

Ecological character displacement is a process of morphological divergence that reduces competition for limited resources. We used genomic analysis to investigate the genetic basis of a documented character displacement event in Darwin’s finches on Daphne Major in the Galápagos Islands: The medium ground finch diverged from its competitor, the large ground finch, during a severe drought. We discovered a genomic region containing the HMGA2 gene that varies systematically among Darwin’s finch species with different beak sizes. Two haplotypes that diverged early in the radiation were involved in the character displacement event: Genotypes associated with large beak size were at a strong selective disadvantage in medium ground finches (selection coefficient s = 0.59). Thus, a major locus has apparently facilitated a rapid ecological diversification in the adaptive radiation of Darwin’s finches.

Similar species potentially compete for limited resources when they encounter each other through a change in geographical ranges. As a result of resource competition, they may diverge in traits associated with exploiting these resources (1, 2). Darwin proposed this as the principle of character divergence [now known as ecological character displacement (3, 4)], a process invoked as an important mechanism in the assembly of complex ecological communities (5, 6). It is also an important component of models of speciation (6, 7). However, it has been difficult to obtain unequivocal evidence for ecological character displacement in nature (8, 9). The medium ground finch (Geospiza fortis) and large ground finch (G. magnirostris) on the small island of Daphne Major provide one example where rigorous criteria have been met (10). Beak sizes diverged as a result of a selective disadvantage to medium ground finches with large beaks when food availability declined through competition with large ground finches during a severe drought in 2004–2005 (11).

.
.
.

Our results provide evidence of two loci with major effects on beak morphology across Darwin’s finches. ALX1, a transcription factor gene, has been associated with beak shape (15), and here we find that HMGA2 is associated with beak size. ALX1 and HMGA2 are 7.5 Mb apart on chromosome 1 in chicken and zebra finch, and probably also in Darwin’s finches, as expected on the basis of the very high degree of conserved synteny among birds (24). Beak size and beak shape are involved in all the major evolutionary shifts in the adaptive radiation of Darwin’s finches (1). They are also subject to strong selection in contemporary time. In the character displacement episode discussed above, beak size was subject to strong directional selection: The standardized selection differential of –0.66 for sexes combined is an exceptionally high value. We have shown that the HMGA2 locus played a critical role in this character shift. The selection coefficient at the HMGA2 locus (s = 0.59 ± 0.14) is comparable in magnitude to the selection differential on the phenotype and is higher than other examples of strong selection, such as loci associated with coat color in mice (s < 0.42) (25). The main implication of our findings is that a single locus facilitates rapid diversification. The lack of recombination between the two HMGA2 haplotypes, together with abundant polygenic variation and ecological opportunity (2, 5), may help to explain rapid speciation in this young adaptive radiation (1).

Anyway, look at today, then stop and consider how quickly things have happened. Homo Sapiens has totally altered nearly every inch of the Earth, and if he were so inclined, could.

This is new.

I always enjoy his geological perspectives and informative posts, but I have to disagree on that one point. When land plants expanded hugely in biomass, they photosynthesized like crazy and completely poisoned the entire atmosphere of the planet with oxygen, which is incredibly toxic to many species. He'll know exactly, but it went from some fraction of a percent or a few percent right up to 10 and then 20 percent really quickly (geologically speaking). So while it may be new for just one single species to have effected such a big change, the phenomenon is not unprecedented. Changes in physical environment are frequent causes of species evolution, but it can happen the other way around too.

Luckily enough for some clades of organisms, they could use the stuff and quickly diversified and expanded into every niche.... and some of them ultimate became humans and set about trashing the land and ocean environments.

TLP, I was book learned that cyanobacteria, not terrestrial plants, are what caused the major first extinction. I'm sure plants contributed, but I thought by the time they came around the extinction was pretty much irreversible. Have I misinterpreted?

Whoa, just saw this. Cool find, Ed! I've been reading a great new book, Why Evolution is True, by Jerry A. Coyne. It has a chapter on seeing evolution in action, that includes some cool experiments of this nature. Nothing like seeing it on video.

By the way, that sh#t is pretty scary! Underscores how we will always have our work cut out for us as humans to stay ahead of bacteria and viruses that would do us harm.